


Follow Me, I'll Be Your River

by joshbroban



Category: Glee
Genre: Anxiety, Childhood Sexual Abuse, Dubious Consent, F/M, Non-Consensual, Other, Panic Attacks, Recreational Drug Use, Self-Harm, Sexual Abuse, Transphobia, Triggers, Underage Drinking, Victim Blaming
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-25
Updated: 2013-11-09
Packaged: 2017-12-21 06:58:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 31,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/897237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/joshbroban/pseuds/joshbroban
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ryder Lynn is having a rough time. Confused about his feelings for Unique and dealing with emotions he's suppressed for five years, he's doing everything he can to hold it together.</p><p>A/N: This story deals strongly with Ryder's sexual abuse. If you are easily triggered, I do not recommend reading unless you are really prepared to read his feelings and thoughts about his abuse and abuser. If you have questions about content, feel free to message me on tumblr at thealmightytrebleclef or tweet me at joshbroban. There is also transphobia throughout, along with misgendering and usage of the name Unique does not prefer. I apologize for AO3's Unique tag.</p><p> </p><p>If you have been abused or know someone who has been abused, I urge you to talk to someone and tell them what happened to you. Feel free to send me a message on Tumblr and I will try and point you in the direction of advice and resources if I can't give any myself. I promise you that I will believe you. In the words of Burt Hummel, "You matter."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This chapter contains a sequence of Ryder being triggered and with Unique being misgendered, hair-pulling as a form of self-harm, along with some dubious consent issues and underage drinking (as a result of peer pressure). Proceed with caution.
> 
> PS. Celeste is the Cheerio with the neckbrace and my headcanon is that she's a lovely girl. I hope this chapter doesn't make her seem like a bad person.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains a sequence of Ryder being triggered and with Unique being misgendered, hair-pulling as a form of self-harm, along with some dubious consent issues and underage drinking (as a result of peer pressure). Proceed with caution.

Ryder doesn’t like drinking. Actually, it’s not the drinking he minds; it’s the not knowing how other people will act that bothers him. He likes being in control of what’s happening to him, and even though he’s not sure how he’ll act if he ever gets drunk, he _really_ doesn’t know how other people will act, and that’s just not a chance he can afford to take. 

Celeste invites him to a party at her house and when he asks if it will be big, she assures him that it will be a small affair. He decides to go, telling his dad that he’s going to chill with Jake for the night. Jake is actually hanging out on the Rose’s couch since his mom is working a bartending shift. They’d invited him, but it’s still a little hard to see how happy Jake and Marley are together, and he kind of hasn’t gotten over their lie.

When he shows up at Celeste’s, he sighs at the sheer number of people there. It is most definitely _not_ a small affair, and he considers just going home, but he’d promised her that he would hang around for bit.

“Ryder!” she cries when she sees him. He grins and she gives him a big hug. He tries not to wince at the smell of alcohol wafting off of her and is careful not to bump her head. “Come have a drink!”

He shakes his head, perhaps a bit too vigorously. “Oh, no, I don’t drink.”

“Just one,” she whines, pulling his hand and walking away. “One little beer.”

“Sorry,” he says, smiling politely and shaking his head. “I’ll be glad to hang out, though.”

She pouts and Ryder finds himself not really caring. Sure, he likes her, but she doesn’t…excite him the way Marley did. Not in a sexy way, but in the sense that she doesn’t make him think the way Marley does, or even how Kitty or Tina do. Celeste is nice, but she’s just not someone he can see himself with for real.

Despite that, he lets her lead him around her house the whole night. She keeps pestering him to have a drink, telling him that one won’t hurt and she can get him something that doesn’t have a lot of alcohol and that he just needs to loosen up because he looks so tense and she heard about the whole Catfish incident and she’s here for him if he needs to talk. 

It’s when she brings up Unique and the “incident” that he finally takes her stupid cup and drinks something fruity and cold and yet somehow feels a burn in this throat. It really does taste good, and he drinks another cup, and then another, and then another. He feels warm and fuzzy, and when Celeste takes his hands and leads him up the stairs to her room, he doesn’t protest, because she’s very pretty and nice and smells good and he’s tired of letting this stupid thing that happened to him keep him from having a little fun. 

She guides him to her bed and he sighs as he rests against the soft pillows. He feels a lazy smile stretch across his face and doesn’t realize that Celeste is kissing him until a few seconds in. He tries to kiss back, but he kind of forgets how at first. It’s sloppy and wet and just as awkward as his tense, stilted kiss with Marley. They eventually figure it out, but Ryder feels like he’s not even really there. He’s awake, but he’s not paying attention and he’d really just like to sleep for a bit. 

Celeste helps him pull his shirt off from her place on his waist. She’s kissing his chest and gripping his arms, and really, it feels pretty good. He doesn’t have a boner or anything, but he’s pretty sure that if he was sober, he would. In the back of his mind, he feels bad because she’s doing all the work, but it’s nice to just let her do what she’s doing. It quickly goes downhill.

Her fingers have made their way down his chest and she massages her thumbs into his hipbones. Just that simple action makes his brain spark back to life and he’s hit with memories like a freight train. For a moment, he’s not on the bed with Celeste, but in the shower with a different blonde girl whose thumbs push into his much narrower hipbones. He can almost feel the hot water pounding against his back and the fear that pumps through his body feels exactly how it did all those years ago.

Ryder sits up and pushes Celeste away.

“Are you okay?” she asks, a look of genuine concern on her face. She reaches for his hand, but he pulls away quickly. He can’t catch his breath and his chest is heaving with sobs he’s pushing down.

“Ryder, I’m so sorry; are you okay?” She sounds so worried that he feels bad, but he can’t speak at all.

“Do you have asthma or something? Should I call someone for you?”

He searches his fuzzy brain for a name, and he can only think of one.

“Katie. Call Katie.”

 

* * *

 

“Wade? Where’s Katie?”

Ryder can hear Celeste talking, but he hasn’t moved in over half an hour. He’s a bit surprised to hear that Unique is actually there. He hasn’t changed her name in his phone, and part of him is glad that he hasn’t. The other part of him hates that she’s here, hates that his brain thought of her to come save him, hates that she still cares even after he pushed her away. He doesn’t need her.

“She, um, couldn’t make it.”

“Who is Katie, anyway?”

Unique coughs. “Mutual friend.” Ryder can hear her footsteps hesitantly walk toward him. “What happened?” she asks gently.

“We were just fooling around and he froze up,” Celeste says, her voice cracking at the last word. “I don’t know what I did,” 

“It probably wasn’t you,” Unique says, but Ryder knows that she knows that’s a lie. “I’ll get him to the car. You can go back to your party.”

Celeste doesn’t say anything, but Ryder can hear her walking away. Before the door closes, Unique asks her if he’s been drinking. When Celeste confirms that he has, he can almost hear Unique’s judgmental look. He wants to tell her that it’s none of her business. 

“Let’s go, Ryder. I’ll take you home.”

He can’t say ‘no’, and that scares him more than anything. It’s not that he thinks she’ll hurt him. Unique is Katie, after all; and Katie is the one person in the entire world that he kind of trusts. Maybe not so much anymore, and maybe not much at all, but the part of him that needs to trust someone right now does. What really frightens him is that alcohol has done exactly what he was afraid it would do to him. 

He stands and lets her lead him through the house and out the front door. He sees that she’s in her boy clothes and in the back of his mind, he worries about people seeing him holding hands with a boy. He doesn’t care, though; not really. 

Ryder climbs into the passenger seat and just wants to go home and lock his door and sleep. Unique sits in the driver’s seat and starts the car. She doesn’t shift into gear right away, though. He can see out of the corner of his eye that she turns to him and bites her lip. He steadfastly ignores her, but he desperately wants to tell her what happened. He blocks everything off and leans his head against the window.

She turns away and drives down different streets until they’re parked outside his house. He almost gets out before he remembers that he’s supposed to be at Jake’s.

“Can you take me to Marley’s?” he manages to say without falling apart. Unique says nothing, just pulls out of his driveway and heads to the Rose’s. She begins to sing along to a song on the radio about being full of light and wonder and he wants, more than anything, to turn to her and forgive her and talk to the girl that he didn’t even know was his best friend all along.

She rolls to a stop outside Marley and Millie’s house. Ryder doesn’t move; he’s forgotten how.

“Did you have a flashback?” she asks him. He breaks and begins to sob.

She knows better than to touch him right now without his permission. Ryder curls up like some sort of worm, his body too long to move much in such a small space. He feels like he’s crumbling from the inside out and he pulls at his hair as he always does when this happens to him, though this hasn’t happened in at least a year.

“Stop,” Unique says when she notices him pulling his hair. “Please,” she adds. “Don’t hurt yourself.” He can hear her voice shaking.

Sobs rip from him and he hates how this feels. He feels like he’s eleven years old again and paralyzed in fear in his bed at night, convinced that She would sneak into his room and do That to him again.

“You can talk to me about it,” Unique says. “I know you hate me, but you can tell me about it and I won’t tell a soul.”

Ryder doesn’t even know how to open his mouth, it seems. He knows that if he opens his mouth, dust will fly out and the rest of his body will crumble like his insides have. Instead, he points to his hips, hoping she’ll understand. 

“She touched you the wrong way?” Unique guesses, and he nods. He feels like a tiny, stupid child when she says things like that, but he doesn’t know how else to explain what he felt in Celeste’s room. He’s seen movies where people act like this and he’s ashamed and embarrassed that he’s become one of those crazy people who can’t handle what’s happened to them. He knows that this isn’t like him and that he’s probably scaring her, so he tries to speak.

“She touched my hips.” His voice is rough and low. Unique nods with wide eyes, making it clear that he can continue if he wants to. 

“When That happened, She started by touching my hips. I always remembered that about it. Sometimes, I can still feel her hands there.”

Unique’s eyes are wet with unshed tears, but she doesn’t break, just continues to listen. 

“After it happened, I stopped taking showers,” He’s told her all this before, but he told Katie, not Unique. It feels different telling the story out loud; he never has. “I would just let the water run, but I wouldn’t get in. Eventually, the school sent me home because I began to smell bad. I told my parents it was because I ran out of body wash, but I got sent to counselors and they all asked if something happened to me, “ Ryder stops and clears his throat. “I always said no. By the time I was going to tell someone, she got locked up and I didn’t see the point.”

Unique’s tears flow freely and Ryder’s surprised to find that he has tears of his own. 

“You know,” Unique starts. “I think I read somewhere that you can still press charges on these things up to like ten or fifteen years later or something.” Katie has already told him this, but both of them are pretending like Katie never existed; Ryder supposes that she didn’t.

“Nah,” Ryder says quickly, wiping his eyes. “She got enough for what she did.”

Unique clearly disagrees, but she doesn’t say anything. Ryder stares at her and he wants so badly to hug her. All he wanted was a chance to hug Katie and look into her eyes and now the opportunity is right in front of him, but he can’t. He just can’t, so he opens the door and gets out. 

He staggers as he steps onto the sidewalk. He turns back to Unique and looks her square in the eyes.

“Thank you,” he says before turning and walking crookedly up to Marley’s door.

 

* * *

 

Celeste is so apologetic when he sees her again that he gives her a big hug and tells her that the alcohol must have made him act a little weird and that it’s not her fault. Really, he knows it’s not, but he doesn’t think he’ll be able to be anything more than friends with her from now on. Part of him is actually upset with her for pressuring him to drink, but the other part knows that she meant nothing bad by it; she just wanted him to relax and have a good time.

Unique just nods at him when he sees her again, dressed in her real clothes and laughing with Jake and Kitty in the back of their home room. All three of them look a little surprised when he takes his usual seat next to them, which he’s been avoiding since after Regionals.

“Where’s Marley?” He asks to no one in particular.

“Doctor’s appointment,” Jake answers, turning his body to Ryder. “She has to have a physical every month.”

Ryder nods and waits for someone to talk again. Unique opens her mouth to say something, but turns to Kitty instead.

"Girl, tell me you heard about Mr. Reinhart's pop quiz today."

Kitty's eyebrows fall and she scowls. "What?" she asks, her voice flat.

Ryder stops paying attention to the girls and pulls out a notebook to doodle. Jake watches him without shame, waiting for Ryder to say something again. Ryder ignores him and draws a flower with a stem that wraps around the pale blue lines of the paper in front of him.

Finally, after a few minutes, Jake looks away with a sigh and pays attention to the girls.

"Reinhart is such a fucking tool. He taught us this shit like three days ago with a lame powerpoint and now we're supposed to know everything about it?"

Ryder tunes out and doesn't notice the note that Unique slips into his backpack.

 

* * *

 

 _Ryder_ ,

_I know you don't want to talk to me, and that's fine, but I thought you should know that you shouldn't hurt yourself when you're upset. I'm always here to talk and I know that I've ruined everything, but I just really think you should tell someone what's going on with you and what happened to you._

_-Unique_

He crumples it up and almost throws it in the trash, but something stops him and he just sticks it back into his bag.

 

* * *

 

Jake asks him to hang out on Saturday, and Ryder reluctantly agrees. He’s not over how he’d gone along with Marley’s lie, and he’s not sure he’ll ever be, but he’d been there for him the weekend before and hadn’t asked the questions Ryder knew he wanted to.

Apparently, Jake’s restraint has given out, because while they wait for the Alcatraz map to download for Black Ops 2, he turns to Ryder and gives him a meaningful look.

“What?” Ryder asks, trying not to sound irritated.

“You know what. When’s all this going to end?”

“All what?” Ryder asks, pulling out his phone and checking his Facebook to avoid the conversation.

“When are you going to talk this out with Unique? And when are you going to stop hating Marley?”

“I don’t hate Marley. And I don’t plan on talking to Unique unless I have to. She knows that.”

“Even after what she did for you last weekend?”

Ryder glares at his friend. “I don’t owe her anything. I didn’t ask for her to come get me.”

“You told Celeste to call Katie. I’m pretty sure that was you asking her to go get you.”

“I was drunk,” Ryder says, but he doesn’t really believe himself anymore. Ever since the party, he’s thought about how the first person he needed was Ka—Unique.

Jake put down his controller and turned his whole body to face Ryder.

“Look, bro. We’re all happy that you decided not to quit after Regionals, and I don’t want you to leave, but are you really going to spend your whole life not speaking to her? Just a few months ago, you were telling me how you told her everything about you, how she knew you better than anyone. You’re really going to let a few lies get in the way of that?”

Ryder looked at him with exasperation. “I don’t owe her anything. She lied about who she was and made me put trust in a fake person.”

Jake just shook his head in disappointment. “Everyone makes mistakes, man. She might have made a big one, but you two need to talk everything out. If not for your sake, then for everyone else’s. “

 

* * *

 

Unique never tries to talk to him, but he finds himself secretly wishing she would. He doesn’t know how to begin a conversation with her, and he’s scared of what might happen if they try talking everything out. He doesn’t want to offend anyone again, but he’s still upset with her and he’s afraid he’ll say something really stupid. He’s caught between being unbelievably upset with her and not wanting to hurt her, because he knows that in the end, she’s still Katie, even if that’s not her name.

Ryder catches himself watching her from across the choir room and classrooms. He likes when she gets into arguments, because she gestures wildly or pulls a fan from out of nowhere or just glares at whoever she’s fighting until they back down. Sometimes she’ll catch his eye and her smile will falter just a bit, but she’ll compose herself just as quickly and go back to glaring or laughing or talking animatedly.

In the meantime, Miss Pillsbury, now Mrs. Schuester, keeps bothering him to stop by her office for a little chat during his free period, but he manages to keep himself busy and far away from that glass box.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter discusses Kitty's sexual abuse as well as Ryder's. Also contains drug use (marijuana) and a hookah. 
> 
> ALSO, I have nothing against Left4Dead. Sam is talking crazy.

One day, he’s about to walk into the choir room when he hears three voices talking. He recognizes the first as Kitty’s.

“Why do you even like him? He’s about as exciting as a chicken nugget.”

“Girl, don’t you go hating on chicken nuggets now,” Unique responds, and Ryder scowls as he realizes that they’re probably talking about him.

“Okay, maybe that was a generous description. He’s about as exciting as a box of rocks.”

Ryder almost makes a noise, but stops himself just in time.

“Kitty!” Says Marley, the third voice.

“Hey now,” Unique says with a chuckle. “He’s nice. He’s goofy and he doesn’t care about being anyone but himself, and he’s a gentleman.”

“Exactly,” Marley agrees.

Kitty scoffs. “A gentleman who won’t talk to you, who kissed his best friend’s girlfriend, and who doesn’t even have the balls to admit that he likes you.”

Ryder frowns. Does he like Unique?

Unique shushes Kitty. “We do _not_ know that, Kitty Cat.”

“Oh, Unique, he looks at you all the time!” Marley offers. Ryder tilts his head and considers that. It’s true that he does keep catching himself staring, but he didn’t realize that others had noticed.

“That’s probably because I’m…me,” Unique mumbles.

“Gorgeous with a fabulous voice?” Marley asks.

“Hilarious and way too nice?” Kitty adds.

Unique giggles and Ryder doesn’t notice the small smile he gets when he hears that noise.

“Stop, you two. Unique knows she’s a catch…I just wish it was easier for other people to see.”

There’s a shuffling and Ryder knows that the girls are all hugging. It’s the pain in her voice that makes him decide that now is as good a time as any to finally have a conversation with her.

He moves away quietly and makes a point to be noisy as he walks into the room. As he suspected, Kitty and Marley are on either side of Unique, embracing the middle girl and resting their heads on hers. They all look up as he walks in and he doesn’t miss Kitty’s glare.

“Um, hey,” he says, not knowing which one to look at. Marley and Unique’s faces are impressively impassive, which makes Kitty’s glare even more intimidating.

“Hi,” Marley finally responds. “Did you leave something in here?” she offers.

Ryder shakes his head and keeps his eyes on Unique, who avoids his. “I was hoping I could talk to you.”

Unique still isn’t looking at him, so Kitty has to nudge her for her to realize that he’s addressing her. She looks up with wide eyes when she realizes what he’s saying, and he grows uncomfortable when he sees the fear there. He doesn’t want her to be afraid.

“Okay,” she responds, her voice clear and strong. “Unique can spare a moment.” The confidence in her voice is obviously false, but he admires how she can act like this when she’s nervous. “It’s okay, ladies; you can go.”

“You sure?” Kitty asks. “I can stick around.”

“I’m sure,” Unique affirms. The other two leave and soon, it’s just the two of them in the choir room, Unique still sitting and Ryder standing near the door.

“Jake thinks we need to talk everything out,” Ryder says after a minute of silence between them.

“I don’t think there’s enough time in the world,” Unique says nervously.

“I’m willing to miss a class or two if you are,” Ryder offers. Unique hesitates, and then nods. Ryder walks over to her and sits in the chair next to her after pulling it away a few feet. Unique’s in jeans with a blue and pink shirt that reminds him of bubblegum or something, and she’s not wearing a wig. Somehow, it all still looks really girly, and he wonders how he could have ever been as mixed up as he was about her.

“I’m really confused,” Ryder confesses as a starting point. “I’m confused because I trust you more than anyone, and I also don’t trust you at all. I’m confused because you’re usually so…proud of who you are, but you thought you had to lie to me to get to know me. I’m confused because you picked me up from that party even after I told you I never wanted to speak to you again. I think part of me hates that the most about everything: how confusing it is.”

Unique nods with understanding and takes a deep breath before talking. “I just…I’m proud of who I am in every way. I love who I am, but I know that not everyone does and I just wanted to feel close to someone the way I felt close to you. I liked you for so long and I just wanted to talk to you and have you talk to me the way you would talk to Marley or Kitty or Tina.”

“I would have--,”

“No,” Unique cuts him off. “You wouldn’t have. Because you didn’t accept that I was a girl until ‘Katie’ told you I was. By the time I realized that it was too deep, I knew I would lose you forever if I came clean. I know it was wrong, but I was just so attached to what we had.”

“Why didn’t you just stop texting me?” Ryder asks. “If you knew it was too deep and that you’d never be able to tell me, why didn’t you just cut me off?”

“Because I felt like you needed her,” Unique replies. “I knew that if she knew all that stuff about you and just stopped talking to you, it would drive you crazy.”

“Knowing that she was in the choir room with me and not telling me almost drove me crazy,” Ryder pointed out.

“I know,” Unique says. “But I guess it was hard for me to let go, too. You became the closest person to me besides Marley and I didn’t want to lose that, either. You were just as important to Katie as she was to you.”

Ryder is quiet after she says that. Neither of them speak for minutes and both of them ignore the ringing bell signaling that the period is over. He has English right now, which he probably shouldn’t miss, but somehow this feels a little more important.

After everything quiets down again, Unique speaks again.

“It feels like the whole world is pushing against me. It’s like I can barely take a step forward without someone trying to shove me back, and Katie was a way for me to escape that for just a little bit.”

Ryder doesn’t know what else he’s supposed to say to her. He can tell how sorry she is and he knows why she did it and that she knows she was wrong and now he just feels bad because he knows how hard it must have been for her to give Katie up because he feels just as empty without their friendship. So he says the only think he feels is right.

“It’s okay.”

Unique looks at him and raises her eyebrows slightly. “What?”

“It’s okay. I forgive—I’m not mad. I understand now. I forgive you.”

Her eyes fill with tears and she wipes them away quickly. “Really?” she asks, her voice so hopeful and relieved that he has to smile.

“Yeah. We all do crazy stuff, Unique.”

A few tears escape and roll down her face, and Ryder leans over to pull her into a hug. Her arms wrap around him and he tries to ignore how perfect this feels, how warm and soft her body is against his, how she smells faintly like the bottle of Chanel Number Five that he broke when he was a kid and that his mother had never replaced.

They pull away and stare into each other’s eyes for a few moments before breaking away and gathering their backpacks.

“See you in Glee?” Ryder asks with a grin.

Unique smiles.

“Of course, darling.”

Ryder most definitely does _not_ stare at the door she walks out of for over a minute after she’s gone. Definitely not.

 

* * *

 

“A supervised sleepover?” Kitty drawls.

Sugar stands at the front of the room after glee rehearsal with a wide grin. “Yes! My daddy is going to order tons of food and we have a lot of games and movies and it will be _so fun!_ And it’s not actually going to be supervised; my daddy is going to be on a business trip and my maid Susie is going to keep an eye on us, but I’m going to bribe her with snow crab and lobster and tell her to leave us alone.”

“I don’t know if my mom will agree to that,” Marley says, and Joe agrees.

“Will your dad be able to tell our parents that he’s going to be there?” Joe asks.

Sugar rolls her eyes.  “Duh! He’ll do anything I ask! I even have an uncle who’ll buy us some _refreshments_.” She winks.

Ryder quickly intercedes. “Can we, um, not do the alcohol?”

A few of them look at him curiously and he thinks he sees Tina roll her eyes, but Sugar shrugs in agreement, still smiling, and he relaxes. No asks why or pressures him into changing his mind, and he’s grateful.

“But can we at least have some weed on hand?” Sugar whines. “What’s a party without illegal substances?”

Ryder gives in to the weed, doubting that it’s going to cause any problems the way alcohol would, and listens to his friends argue and laugh during planning. It’s almost six-thirty by the time they all begin to leave, and they’re all smiling and excited for the following night when they’re all going to meet at Sugar’s house.

He’s going to follow Jake and Artie out the door when he notices Kitty still sitting while looking through her phone. Thinking back, he realizes that she’s probably not doing anything on her phone at all. He walks back into the room and sits next to her.

“I won’t let anything happen to you,” he whispers.

She looks up in surprise and her eyes are full of worry.

“We’ll stay up all night if we have to,” Ryder continues.

“I trust all of these guys. As much as it pains me to say it, I trust everyone in Glee Club, but…”

“You trusted Julie,” he finishes, and she nods.

“We would never hurt you,” he assures her. “I won’t let anyone hurt you.”

She nods and buries her face into his chest, and he wraps his arms around her to hold her close. He knows her fear all too well.

“Maybe you should tell someone besides me, so you feel safer at the sleepover.”

“Like who?” she asks with a frown.

“I don’t know, Unique? Marley? Whoever you feel the closest to,” he suggests. “You don’t have to, I’m not pressuring you to or anything. I just think it might make you feel better.”

She thinks for a bit and nods. He smiles at her and she rolls her eyes before standing and walking out of the choir room, him trailing behind her.

 

* * *

 

“Welcome to Casa de la Motta!”

“I don’t think that’s the phrase,” Blaine mutters.

The house is _huge_ , and the foyer alone has Ryder in awe of its old-style architecture and spotless walls. His own house is really nice, sure, but the Mottas are clearly not wanting for anything.

“Let’s go, the basement is where the fun is at!” Sugar skips away and the rest of them look at each other with amused smirks before following her.

Ryder helps carry Artie down the stairs and then lets out a low whistle as they walk into the carpeted, furnished basement that pretty much looks like a good-sized apartment with no walls, except for what he assumes is a bathroom and—

“What’s that?” Tina asks, pointing at a door in the corner.

“The panic room and bomb shelter,” Sugar answers casually. Ryder looks to his left and is a little surprised to see Unique next to him. She’s clearly holding in a laugh and they smile at each other.

Sugar points to the corner on the same side of the room as the bomb shelter door. There’s a big, maroon sectional couch in front of a huge (Ryder would guess 73-inch) television that’s surrounded by various systems. Ryder’s not even sure he can name all of them. “That’s where we can watch movies or play video games.”

She points to another corner across from it that has bean bag chairs, a round table with an exotic-looking contraption atop it, and a little karaoke machine. “That’s where we can sing and smoke,” she explains, wagging her eyebrows suggestively and giggling immediately afterwards. “I also bought a hookah, so everyone’s going to try it…if they want to.”

There’s a foosball table and a pool table in between both areas and Ryder can already tell this is going to be awesome.

“Where are we sleeping?” Sam asks.

“Wherever you want!” Sugar answers. “I have tons of extra blankets and a few sleeping bags, so I’ve got you covered if anyone forgot theirs. And no funny business!” She adds. “I don’t want any of you to make my awesome party awkward.”

“Yeah, Jake and Marley!” Sam teases, and Marley turns bright pink while Jake scowls at Sam.

“The food should be here any minute. Can someone help me bring the other snacks down?”

Blaine, of course, volunteers immediately. Tina follows and the rest of them stand around and look at their surroundings.

“This place is insane,” Artie says. “I mean, I’ve been here before, but I didn’t know they had a basement.”

“She has a _bomb shelter_ ,” Kitty says, and they all laugh.

“I’m going to play foosball,” Ryder decides, and Kitty quickly says she’ll play with him.

They stand on opposite sides of the table while everyone else distributes to the other parts of the basement. Ryder finds a ball in a little compartment on the side of the table and they begin to play.

“I told Jake,” Kitty says, her eyes concentrated on the game in front of them. Ryder tries to keep his game up while responding.

“Jake? Really?”

“Yeah, I begged him not to tell Marley yet.”

“Why Jake?” Ryder asks.

“Why are you so curious?” Kitty retorts, scoring on him and smirking in response.

“I just didn’t expect it to be him. I thought for sure it would be one of the girls.”

“Well, forgive me for being wary of other girls after what happened the last time I told someone.” She scores again, but mostly because Ryder looks at her with a sad feeling sinking in his stomach.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Kitty snaps. Ryder nods and they continue their game.

“You know, though, right?” Ryder asks after a few minutes and Kitty scoring on him twice more. “You know that the girls would never—“

“Yes,” Kitty answers quickly. “I know that. It’s just a _thing_ , okay? Like, reasonably, I know they would believe me; but it’s not that easy.”

“Yeah, I know. I’m sorry,”

“It’s fine.”

Kitty sighs after scoring on him again and turns to look around the room for someone. “Unique!” she calls. “Come take my place! This is way too easy.”

Unique only spares Ryder a glance before scowling at Kitty.

“Can’t you see that Unique is about to have some traditional teen experiences?” Unique is sitting with Marley, Jake, Sugar, Blaine, and Joe, waiting for the tube protruding from the contraption in the middle of a table to be passed to her.

“Smoking hookah is _not_ a traditional teen experience!”

Unique rolls her eyes and turns back to the circle. Ryder watches as she puts the tube to her mouth and seemingly takes a deep breath. She coughs and Sugar giggles as she steals the tube away and demonstrates a better way of doing it.

“Take a picture,” Kitty says, and he snaps back to her. She’s smirking and shaking her head. “You are _way_ too obvious for your own good.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ryder says, putting the foosball back into the compartment. “I’m going to go watch Sam and Tina play Black Ops.”

He sits in the middle of sectional while Sam and Tina sit side by side on one end.

“I hate this game,” Tina complains. “Can’t we play Left4Dead?”

“No,” Sam says. “Hell to the no.”

“Why not?” Tina whines as she gets killed yet again. “This is so hard.”

“One, because Left4Dead is like the bitch version of Black Ops zombies; and two, we’re playing on _easy_.”

“I don’t appreciate your misogynistic language,” Tina mutters. “ARGH,” she screams as she finally dies for good.

Sam pauses and gives her a fond look. “You’ll get the hang of it, young padawan.”

Tina gives a small smile while Sam bumps her shoulder.

“You wanna play?” Tina asks Ryder, holding out her controller.

Ryder shakes his head. “I’m not very familiar with Xbox controls.”

Tina shrugs and Sam restarts the level so she can play again. After a few minutes, Ryder gets bored, so he wanders over to the group of people sitting around the hookah.

“We’re trying it with weed added now,” Sugar says excitedly.

“What is hookah, anyway?” Ryder asks as he sits on the ground between Kitty and Blaine.

“It’s like tobacco and water and flavoring. It feels really nice.” Blaine explains with a reassuring smile. “It doesn’t really get you high or anything.”

“But this one will,” Kitty supplies. “I want the first hit,” she calls to Sugar, and the other girl quickly nods and hands her the tubey-thing.

Kitty takes a long breath from the nozzle. When she takes it out of her mouth, she waits for a bit before a white, soft-looking cloud of smoke flows from her mouth. She passes it to Unique on her left and it makes its way around until it’s Ryder’s turn. He’s figured out by now how to properly smoke from it, and it feels weird in his mouth, yet somehow it tastes…good.

“Is that grape?” he asks, and Sugar giggles.

The tube goes around twice more and by the third time Ryder takes a hit, he’s feeling very…happy. Jake and Joe are kind of staring off into space while the girls and Blaine all have soft smiles that they don’t even really seem conscious of. Marley, though, has a huge smile and it’s kind of creeping Ryder out.

As if she can read his thoughts (and he’s momentarily terrified that she can), she turns to him and blinks slowly. “Ryder!” she says, and Jake slowly turns his head to look at him, too. “Do you like it?”

Ryder chuckles and nods, even though it feels like his head is just flopping back and forth. “Yeah, it’s great.”

Marley laughs and turns unexpectedly to kiss Jake sloppily on the cheek.

“You two should shotgun!” Blaine says to Jake and Marley, and Sugar squeals in agreement.

“What’s that?” Jake asks, and Ryder realizes that Jake is just as new to this as he is, now that he remembers that Jake never really partied.

“I blow smoke into your mouth, or the other way around,” Marley answers, her grin still plastered on her face.

“Watch,” Kitty says, taking the tube from Unique. “Come here, Sugar,”

Sugar crawls over and kneels in between Kitty and Ryder. She holds her mouth open slightly and Ryder watches with fascination as Kitty blows the smoke from her mouth into the other girl’s. They’re not quite kissing, but it still looks strangely intimate and personal. Sugar grins as the smoke leaves her mouth, and Kitty ruffles her hair gently before pushing her away. Sugar just giggles and crawls back to her spot.

Ryder doesn’t watch Jake and Marley do the shotgunning thing. Instead, he watches Unique. She doesn’t seem to notice; she’s focused on a Rubik’s Cube that he didn’t even notice was on the table. He watches the hair of her wig and her full lips and her soft-looking hands and they all seem to be simultaneously moving and still. She’s not grinning anymore like the other girls and Blaine, but she doesn’t look sad either. There’s happiness in her eyes, along with an easy laziness and he realizes that, for the first time he can remember since meeting her, she’s relaxed. Soon, the smoke falling in tendrils from her lips mesmerizes him, swirling and dancing in front of her.

He doesn’t know how long he’s been staring at her before she finally notices; it feels like seconds and hours and days all at once. She blinks, then smiles, and he thinks he might be blinded and he knows, he _knows_ that he—

“Get a room,” Kitty whispers before getting up and kicking him lightly. Ryder just smiles and gives Unique one last glance before turning his attention to everyone else around him.

“We should do this every weekend!” Sugar cries. Joe laughs.

“How about every month?” Blaine compromises, and Sugar nods enthusiastically.

“Can I switch places with you, Unique?” Kitty asks. “I want to sit by Marley.” Unique nods and they crawl around each other until Unique’s thigh is brushing against Ryder’s. He looks down at their legs and stares for a long time before Unique’s finger is under his chin and moving his face back up.

“My eyes are up _here,_ Pretty Boy.”

Ryder just smiles. God, he wants to kiss her, and that drives him crazy. Their relationship is so complicated and everything is so weird and he doesn’t understand everything, but he doesn’t care about that right now.

He takes the tube from Blaine and draws in a big cloud from the nozzle. He puts his hand on cheek of Unique’s that’s further from him and she turns her head easily. Ryder leans forward and blows the smoke into her mouth, their lips not even grazing, but her upper lip brushing below his nose for a fraction of a second. She takes the smoke in and blows it back out, and he presses his lips against her bigger ones for barely a moment before she pulls away.

“I’m sorry,” she says before standing up. He frowns and doesn’t notice Marley and Kitty watching him sadly. Unique walks over and sits by Sam and Tina, who have since moved on to Mario Kart.

“She just needs time,” Marley offers. “She doesn’t understand that you like her.”

“Do I like her?” Ryder asks. Marley and Kitty just stare at him before the former makes a noise of disgust and goes to join the crew in front of the TV. Ryder sees her wrap an arm around Unique and they sit in quiet companionship, watching Sam and Tina.

“I do like her,” Ryder states to no one.

“We know,” Blaine says before resting his head on Ryder’s shoulder.

 

* * *

 

When everyone’s ready to sleep, Ryder can tell Kitty’s waiting for him to pick a spot so that she can lay near him, and that Unique’s doing the same, so that she can stay as far away as possible. He respects that, and now that his high is wearing off, he somewhat understands.

Finally, he sets his sleeping bag down a few yards away from Jake so that he’s not too close to Unique (who will surely sleep near Marley), but so that Kitty isn’t too far from the only other person who knows how afraid she is.

“Everything’s going to be fine,” he tells Kitty after they’re all lying down and talking amongst themselves. Sugar is chattering about doing the sleepover again next month, her voice heavy with sleepiness.

“I know,” Kitty replies softly. He reaches out and takes her hand. She wrinkles her nose and shoots him a scowl. “Only until I fall asleep,” and he nods with a laugh.

Kitty dozes off not long after, and he gently lets go of her hand. He tries to fall asleep, but his mind seems to be whirring back to life and his head is full of thoughts about Unique and Glee Club and school, but mostly Unique.

His phone vibrates with a text next to his head.

 

_From: Katie – Goodnight, Ryder_

Ryder smiles softly at his screen before whispering, “Good night, Unique.”

Before he falls asleep, he slowly deletes the name “Katie” from the contact card and replaces it with “Unique”.

 

* * *

 

Morning comes and the previous night hits Ryder like a train: foosball with Kitty, smoking hookah and weed, shotgunning with Unique and then kissing her…it all seems like a strange dream. He’s confused and angry with himself for kissing her, not because he doesn’t want to, but because he hasn’t even sorted out how he feels about her, really. All he knows is that he likes her, and it’s a romantic kind of  ‘like’, and that nothing about any of this is simple.

Unique comes up to him while they all eat breakfast in Sugar’s dining room.

“We can just forget about last night, if you want,” she says simply.

Ryder sighs with relief. “That would be great.”

She nods and turns swiftly, so he doesn’t notice the hurt look that crosses her face.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has mentions of: Marley's eating disorder (very light mentions), pressure to receive mental help, and nightmares about sexual abuse. 
> 
> There is a secret revealed in this chapter as well, so be prepared for Ryder to say something that clashes with what happened in canon.

On Wednesday, Marley sits next to him at lunch and offers him a bite of her apple. He declines and tries not to stare at her while she eats.

“I’m not a ticking bomb, Ryder,” she says quietly as she picks at a salad.

“I wasn’t—“

“You were,”

He looks down at his sandwich. “Sorry,”

Marley sighs and puts a hand on his shoulder. “No, I’m sorry. I get kind of touchy when…well…”

“I get it,” he replies softly. “You don’t have to explain yourself to me. I know it’s hard.”

She nods and lifts a bite to her mouth. He knows she’s probably counting her bites, and he knows he should say something, but he also knows that sometimes people need to give in to the weird things they do, if only for a bit. Their silence is comfortable, and this is what he enjoys about her and Jake: they don’t need to talk to be around each other.

He’s taking a drink of his milk when she clears her throat.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Yeah, shoot,” he says after swallowing.

“I thought…well, I figured that you and Unique would be like, a _thing_ after Friday night.”

His brow furrows. “Really?”

Marley frowns. “Of course. I mean—you kissed her,” she points out. “She likes you, and you kissed her, so I thought--,”

“She said that we could forget all of that.”

Marley’s jaw drops. “So you did?”

“Well, that’s not—“

“You know that she likes you, and you kissed her, and then you told her to just forget all about it?”

“No! She’s the one who ran away, she’s the one who told me we could forget it!”

“That doesn’t mean you _do_ it!”

The people near them are listening now, and Ryder lowers his voice before continuing.

“You have no idea what I’m going through right now.”

“And you have no idea what _she’s_ going through.”

“If she wants to talk about it, she can tell me. She should know that I’m willing to listen.”

“Well, maybe you should tell her that,” Marley says before standing and storming away.

 

* * *

 

Much to his own shame, Ryder doesn’t listen to Marley and talk to Unique about the sleepover. He knows that the smart thing to do would be to meet after school and have a long talk about how they feel about each other and what they’re willing to risk, but Ryder really just isn’t up to it, he finds.

He’d thought that revealing his secret would ease the weight he’s carried for so long, but it almost feels heavier now after the reactions he got from some of the boys. He hasn’t really been able to look Sam and Artie in the eye, and part of him feels betrayed when Kitty starts hanging out with Artie more. On one hand, he’s happy that she’s beginning to let more people in and is learning to be a nicer person; on the other hand, she’s the only person he knows who understands what he’s been through and she knows how much Sam and Artie’s comments fucked him up.

In any case, when Mr. Schue calls Ryder into his office after rehearsal one day, Ryder isn’t surprised when he says that Ryder should consider telling his parents what happened to him.

“As an educator, I should have told them the moment I found out, but I really, really want it to be your decision, Ryder. Miss Pillsbury wants me to tell you that she’s available for you to visit at any time, even during class. We want you to start to move on.”

Ryder frowns. “Who says that I haven’t moved on?”

Mr. Schuester looks him in the eye, tilts his head, and then sighs. “Ever since you told all of us and ever since we found out about Unique, you haven’t been the same. Finn says that you’re not the same bright boy that came to us for Grease, and frankly, I agree.”

Ryder rolls his eyes.

“Ryder, you’ve become so much more withdrawn in these past few weeks that _five_ Glee Club members have come to me or Finn to express their worry. I’m trying not to pressure you, but I just really would hate to see you fall into a funk that you can’t get out of.”

He knows that it’s rude and he knows that Mr. Schue is right and that everything is beginning to weigh down on him and that his parents not knowing is huge part of that, but Ryder pushes all those things away when he stands up and walks right out on his teacher.

 

* * *

 

The first nightmare comes the night after Mr. Schue’s confrontation.

Ryder’s kissing Unique in the rain and he can feel her smile against his own. His body burns with something he can’t understand, but he doesn’t want that feeling to ever end. He can practically feel her skin beneath his, soft and wet and warm; he wants to stay there forever. 

But then Unique’s gone and the rain isn’t rain anymore; it’s water from the showerhead, except the water is hotter than the rain and steam rises from his skin like the smoke curled from his lips and he _knows_ , he knows She’s behind him. He wants to scream out, but he can’t remember how to make noise, he can’t remember how to turn or how to push away whoever is breathing against his skin.

He wakes up before She can push her thumbs into his hips.

 

* * *

 

Ryder may or may not wake up too late to shower the next morning.

 

* * *

 

“Have you been sleeping okay, boy?” Unique asks in world history one day when the teacher is too lazy to give them any work.

Ryder looks down at his doodle and continues to weave vines through his name.

“Yeah. Why do you ask?”

Unique frowns and a stops his hand with her own.

“Because you’ve been weird as hell and it’s like you’re barely here. Not to mention that I _know_ what day-old body wash smells like.”

Ryder hesitates, biting his lip. Things seem to be okay with him and Unique now, but there’s still some issue of trust here. He didn’t give her a chance to blab about his secret, but she hadn’t told anyone before that…

“If I tell you something, can you promise not to tell anyone?” He leans toward her, practically out of his desk chair.

She glances around and then slides her desk closer to his. “Of course.”

He searches her eyes for something fake, but he can only find genuine concern. He sighs and tells her about the nightmares he’s been having, excluding the beginning.

“I always wake up before She does anything, but I just…I get too scared to sleep because I know it’s just going to be the same thing.”

“Is that why you haven’t been showering?”

He frowns. “I only skipped like two showers,” he protests. “And not even in a row.”

“Mhmm,” Unique responds, raising her eyebrows and clearly judging him.

“What should I do?” He asks, his voice timid. Unique softens and pats his shoulder gently.

“I think you need to tell your parents. And I think you need to talk to someone professionally.” He scoffs and she scowls. “I’m just being honest. You opened up those old wounds and now they need closure.”

“And stressing my parents out about something that doesn’t even matter anymore is going to do that?”

“Something that doesn’t matter? It clearly matters, Ryder,”

He shakes his head and turns to watch the clock. “I’ll talk to Miss Pillsbury, but no way am I going to stress out my parents like that.”

He doesn’t need to look at her to see her disappointment.

 

* * *

 

“You know, this is a lot more helpful if you talk, Ryder.”

Ryder lets out a sigh of exasperation and looks Miss Pillsbury in the eye. “What am I supposed to say? A bad thing happened to me a long time ago and sometimes it makes me sad?”

“I think it does more than make you sad.”

“Like what?” he snaps. He knows he’s coming across as defensive, with his arms crossed and avoiding her eyes, but he just… _really_ doesn’t want to be here.

“Well, Will—Mr. Schuester informed me that you never told anyone about what happened to you.”

“I told a whole choir room.”

Miss Pillsbury purses her lips. “You know what I mean. You never told your parents, an authority figure, a friend…I think that because of that, your subconscious held back those memories. I think that when you opened up and told someone about it, the emotions that you never dealt with came back with a stronger impact.”

Ryder holds up a hand. “Look, ma’am, with all due respect, I think this is a load of bull. I’m fine. She’s in jail and I never have to see her again. This emotional stuff is just stress from school and Glee Club.”

“I think you’re deflecting and hiding from what’s hurting you.”

Ryder shakes his head. “Oh, is that what you think? What other brilliant thoughts do you have?”

To her credit, Miss Pillsbury doesn’t even flinch at his rudeness.

“I think that you hate how much this is affecting you. I think you want to hate Artie and Sam for reacting the way they did when you opened your heart to them, but they’re good friends to you in other ways and you don’t want to lose them. I think you’re confused about how you went so long without thinking about what happened to you and now it’s all you can think about. I think there’s a lot you’re not telling me and I think part of that is because even though there are glass walls around this office and we’re surrounded by people, a small part of you hates being in this room alone with a woman. I think that it’s up to you whether you want to see me or not, but that it’s important to talk to _someone._ ”

Ryder is afraid of the anger swelling inside of him. It’s battling with his fear and his desperation and he feels like he’s losing control of everything he’s so carefully constructed inside of himself. He’s forgetting how to make eye contact and how to breathe evenly and how to pretend like nothing is happening inside of him. It’s like it all spills out of him and tears begin to burn at his eyes and tumble over his lashes. He manages to remember how to open his mouth.

“I’ve been having these dreams…”

 

* * *

 

Miss Pillsbury insists that he tell his parents so he can talk to someone who knows more about sexual abuse, but he’s not ready and she just nods when he tells her that. He’s beginning to see why he should tell them, but he’s still afraid. He knows what happened to Kitty and he doesn’t want that to happen to him, too.

 

* * *

 

He thought he would tell Unique or Kitty or even Marley first, but it seems to jump out of his mouth when he’s at Jake’s.

“I talked to Miss Pillsbury,” he blurts the moment Jake’s mom walks out the door.

“What?”

Ryder takes a deep breath. “I told her about what happened to me. Well, she already knew, but I...you know…we talked about it.”

Jake’s face is, as usual, hard to read. His mouth opens as if to speak, but he closes it soon after, as though rethinking his words (which, Ryder knows, he probably is.)

Eventually, he just pulls Ryder into a hug and holds him tightly. Ryder is frozen with shock for a second before returning the gesture. It lasts almost a full minute and when Jake pulls away, Ryder swears that his eyes look wet.

But it’s Jake, so no tears spill over.

“I’m really glad, man; seriously. I’m really proud of you for talking to her about it.”

“Really?” Ryder asks, skeptical.

Jake nods. “Yeah,” he looks away and Ryder is surprised to see something like embarrassment on his friend’s face. “Look, dude, I let you down that day when the lights were out. I should have stood up for you or something, but I wussed out. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, man,”

“No, it’s not,” Jake interjects, turning to sit down on the recliner in his living room. Ryder follows and kicks his legs up on their dark blue couch. Jake looks at him and shakes his head. “I think we should talk to the other guys. Or even the whole Glee club, you know?”

“I don’t know…” Ryder mumbles, looking down at his hands. “I think you’re overreacting.”

“What if those guys go through their whole lives thinking that it’s okay for people to go through that if they’re boys?” Jake is clearly fired up, and he’s aware of it, so he closes his eyes and visibly calms. “I’m not saying you have to; it’s not your job to go around teaching dickbags not to be ignorant. But if you’re saying ‘no’ just because you don’t think it was a big deal, then you’re lying to yourself.”

Ryder doesn’t say anything back because he knows that Jake is right.

“I’m sorry,” Jake says. “I know I sound like a dick.”

“You don’t, man. You really don’t. I just wish you could have said this stuff earlier.”

Jake nods and looks down at his hands. His cell phone buzzes and he flips it open quickly. After he reads it, he rolls his eyes and sighs. “The girls want us to meet them at the amusement park. It was just supposed to be those three, but Kitty got sick and they want more people with them.”

“We goin’?” Ryder asks, perking up at the thought of an amusement park.

Jake snorts. “Do you want to?”

“Hell yeah!” Jake laughs and stands.

“Let’s go then.”

 

* * *

 

“I thought you were sick,” Jake says immediately when they arrive.

“Looks like Jesus thought Kitty Cat deserved a miracle. But since you’re here, you might as well stay,” Kitty retorts with an overly sweet smile. Ryder’s not sure what’s going on, but he seems to be the only one. The others are all glancing at each other with expressions varying from worry to excitement.

“Let’s ride the Ferris Wheel!” Marley says loudly. “Oh, look, Sugar’s in line! She can ride with us and Kitty.” Marley takes Jake’s hand and pulls him away. They’re followed closely by Kitty, and Ryder doesn’t notice Jake looking back apologetically at him.

Since each compartment holds four and they’re the last in the line right now, that means Ryder and Unique are sharing one.

“You ready?” Ryder asks, ignoring the quickening pace of his heart.

“Unique was born ready, baby,”

He grins and gestures to the cart once it arrives. “Ladies first.”

If he’d thought Unique’s smile was bright before, this one is blinding.

Once he’s stepping in, he realizes that he has to choose whether he should sit next to her or across from her. The ride operator is giving him a bored, yet irritated look; combined with Unique’s carefully impassive expression, Ryder panics and takes the seat next to her.

The door latches behind him and he’s acutely aware of how close she is to him. Her hand is less than an inch from his own and he can feel her warmth radiating. The ride lurches forward and he grasps her hand without thinking. They both look down in surprise, but he doesn’t let go.

“Sorry,” he says. “I love rides, but I’m kind of a wuss.”

“I think that makes you brave,” Unique responds kindly. “They say you can’t have courage without fear.”

He turns his head to her and she’s looking right at him. “Are you afraid of anything?” He asks her, only because she’s the bravest person he knows.

“Oh, hell yes. I’m scared of everything.”

“Like what?” he pesters.

Unique chuckles. “Why are you being so nosy?”

Ryder laughs in response. “I just want to know! I can’t imagine you being afraid of anything. You’re like the most fearless person I know.”

She tilts her head. “Really?”

He nods. “Definitely. You know, the day I started at McKinley and saw you, I admired you.” He’s not lying; he remembers seeing her across the cafeteria with the Glee kids, face full of makeup even if she wasn’t in a dress or a wig.

“But you--,”

“Yeah, I didn’t understand,” he interjects, knowing where her mind is. “That doesn’t mean I didn’t respect the fact that you had the balls—or—um—you know what I mean—to show up to school exactly as you wanted the world to see you. That’s amazing,” he insists.

Ryder doesn’t even realize that he’s opening his fingers to lace through hers until a spark of something like electricity shocks him lightly. They both look down again and are again surprised at the sight of their hands intertwined, the dark brown of her hand contrasting with the creamy hue of his.

“Ryder,” she warns, but she doesn’t move to pull her hand away. If anything, her fingers tighten.

“Just let me do this,” he pleads. “I might not understand everything in my head or about this, but please just let me do this. It feels…right.”

She doesn’t say anything, just nods. They’re silent for the rest of the ride and Unique eventually rests her head on his shoulder. His heart feels like it’s going to beat right out of his body, but he manages to keep his cool. She sits up before they stop and he wants to stay on the Ferris Wheel forever.

The others avoid their gazes when they all meet again, but Ryder realizes now that they probably did this on purpose to make him talk with Unique. Part of him wants to call them out, but part of him likes the idea of using this opportunity to his advantage. Despite his confusion, he really does just want to spend time with Unique without worrying about anything heavy.

They don’t hold hands when they’re walking, but Ryder and Unique make a point to ride everything they can together, and they always lace their fingers together the second they’re strapped in. Marley is practically giddy every time she sees it, and Kitty’s satisfied smirk is plastered to her face. Jake pretends not to be interested in anyone or anything except Marley, but Ryder catches Jake smiling at him and Unique every couple of minutes out of the corner of his eye.

The sun is almost down by the time any of them feel like leaving. Jake and Marley are hungry and want to get pizza, but both of them left their money at home. Ryder offers to pay for it, but they insist on going back and picking up cash before meeting them at the pizza place. Kitty offers to drive and Unique looks like she’s embarrassed to know them.

“I guess we’re riding together,” Ryder says, reaching to rub the back of his neck. Unique nods, avoiding his eyes.

“Why waste gas? You should walk, it’s not far,” Marley says excitedly. Kitty smacks her arm and she calms down. “I mean, if you want.”

“You guys are ridiculous,” Ryder says before holding his hand out for Unique to take. “Want to take a walk?”

She looks down and hesitates. He feels his heart drop when he sees her look around them, clearly judging whether it’s safe, but he grins when she seems to decide that she doesn’t care and takes his hand.

“Ooooh,” Kitty coos from her car, where all three are buckled in but watching with stupid grins. “Get it, girl.”

“Get gone,” Unique retorts before walking briskly forward and pulling Ryder along with her. He _definitely_ does not become transfixed with the swoop of her skirt over her butt.

They walk in silence for a few minutes, their hands swinging between them. It’s scary and easy at the same time, but Ryder is surprised by just how _not_ scary it feels to him at the same time. Sure, some part of him is worried about something unknown, but he doesn’t care at the moment. To his delight, she doesn’t seem to care either.

“Is this okay?” he asks, just in case.

She turns to him, confused. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

“I just—we haven’t said anything for like three minutes.”

Unique smiles softly. “I think Unique is just overwhelmed with affection.”

He laughs. “I love the way you talk,” he confesses, bumping his shoulder against hers. “You sound like a queen or something.”

“Well, only the best will do.” Ryder laughs again.

The pizza place is across the street from where they are, so Ryder tightens his grip on her hand and jogs lightly across the road, Unique trailing behind him. They get to the other side and she bumps into him a bit, not realizing that he was stopping so soon. He catches her to balance her and he realizes that this is one of those cheesy moments from the rom-com’s he’s watched with his sister and he leans in until his lips are less than an inch from hers.

“You can push me away if you want,” he whispers, his forehead touching hers while his arms still hold her up. He can feel her breath against his skin and it takes all of his restraint to not just lean in and kiss the corner of her mouth.

“That’d be a ‘hell no’,” she breathes before closing the distance between them.

Warmth spreads down through his body while a tingle starts at his toes and travels up to his head, which feels lighter with every second. Her lips are so big and soft that he thinks he might get lost in them, but he wants to know those lips more than anything. It’s a pretty mild kiss, nothing like the girls who’d basically tongue-battled him, but it’s sweet and tender and emotional and he doesn’t want it to end. His hand reaches up to cup the back of her neck and his thumb massages into the space behind her left ear. Unique lifts one of her hands and places it gently on one of his cheeks so that her fingers just barely tangle in his hair.

After what feels like forever, but is probably less than a minute, she pulls away and stares at him with eyes that look both dazed and bright. A smile is pulling at the corners of her mouth, but she seems to be waiting for his reaction. He can’t speak.

“Not bad,” she jokes after the silence seems to stretch. Her nervous laugh brings him out of his daze and a broad grin spreads across his face. She smiles in relief. “Lord, I thought I’d broken you or something.”

“Not a chance,” he says, winking for good measure. She rolls her eyes and turns to sit down on the bench outside the restaurant to wait for the others. He sits close to her, their bodies brushing against each other.

“I feel like we skipped a few steps,” Unique confesses. Ryder turns in surprise.

“What do you mean?”

Unique sighs. “I just feel like after everything we’ve been through and how…I don’t know, _complicated_ this is, we should have had more problems or something. Like, we’re sitting here together and we just walked all that way holding hands and we just kissed and anyone could have seen us…isn’t there supposed to be a phase where we only see each other in secret because the world isn’t ready for a relationship like this?”

Ryder frowns. “Is that what you want?”

“No,” she admits, looking away from his eyes.

He takes her hand gently in his. “What _do_ you want?” he asks softly.

“I want…” she hesitates, spreading her fingers so their hands can latch together. “I want to be brave enough to be with someone publicly, and I want it to be with someone brave enough to do it.”

“I can do that,” Ryder says quickly. “I’ll shout it from the rooftops.”

“Boy, calm yourself,” she says with a giggle. She becomes somber quickly, though. “But, Ryder…I don’t want you to feel obligated to do this. Just because you…like me doesn’t mean that you have to put yourself in danger. Because that’s what’s going to happen,” she warns. “People aren’t going to be happy with this. They’ll say awful things, and maybe it’s better if we just keep it a secret, but I can’t hide anymore. I can’t do it.”

He covers their clasped hands with his other one. “I would never—I’m not afraid of them, Unique. I might be afraid of a lot of things, but I’m not afraid of those cowards.”

She nods, her eyes beginning to shine with unshed tears. “I just don’t want us to be stupid about this if it isn’t worth it.”

Ryder feels his heart sink at her words. He tries not to be obvious about his fear that he’s more invested in this. “Is it…I mean…is this worth it to you?”

Unique’s eyelashes are just so _long_. Ryder can’t tell if they’re fake or not. Underneath, her brown eyes are searching his for something he doesn’t know.

“Yes,” she says finally. “I don’t want you to feel obligated to feel the same, but it’s worth it to me.”

Ryder sighs with exasperation. “Stop with this ‘obligation’ stuff. I want to be here. I want to show this shitty town that we’re too good for them.”

Unique giggles and one tear escapes. He wipes it as it rolls down her cheek.

“You make me feel things I’ve never felt, Unique. You’re the first person who ever convinced me to talk to someone about what happened to me. You’re the first girl I ever really trusted. I just—that really means something to me. You know that.”

She nods and rests her head on his chest. He wraps his arms around her and kisses the top of her head. It seems so surreal to think that only a few weeks ago, he had been so angry with her and now, he was beginning to think that he might—

“Speaking of that,” Unique says, sitting up. “I heard you talked to Miss Pillsbury. How’d it go?”

Ryder freezes. There’s a secret he’s never told even her, one that he’s been lying about so long that he almost managed to convince himself it was true. He wants to be completely honest with her, and maybe this isn’t the time or place, but he decides to just go for it.

“It went really well. But actually, I need to tell you something.”

 

* * *

 

“So you had a good weekend?” Miss Pillsbury asks.

Ryder nods, still too afraid to tell her the secret that he told Unique that day at the pizza parlor, the one that had made her cry with anger and beg him to tell someone about. He gets the feeling, though, that maybe Miss Pillsbury has figured him out.

“I was thinking about your story this weekend, Ryder,” she begins.

“Yeah? Nothing depressing enough on TV?”

She ignores him. “You told me that your abuser went to jail for doing the same thing she did to you to someone else.”

He nods, keeping his breathing even. “That’s right.”

“How did you find out about that? A newspaper?”

He nods, unable to think of anything else to say.

“And your parents never suspected anything happened to you, even though your abuser’s name was in the newspaper and they knew that she had been watching you not long before that?”

“I, um,” he panics, unable to think of a response.

“Ryder,” she says gently, carefully, pityingly. “Did your abuser really go to jail?”

His jaw sets stiffly as his eyes burn with tears. He can’t remember how to speak, so he shakes his head.

“What happened to her?”

He opens his mouth and a weird, high-pitched noise comes out. He clears his throat and tries again to tell what he feels is the worst part of his story. “She—She, uh—She moved away. She told me to never tell anyone because no one would believe me, and my parents didn’t need to hire Her again, and then She moved to Iowa. She’s still out there, somewhere.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not sure when the next chapter will be up, but it will most likely be soon. It will be a heavy one for sure, and may not be what you guys want to read, but it's the story I want to tell. Thanks for reading so far!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a very emotionally draining chapter to write, and, I'm assuming, will be an emotional one to read. Warning for: transphobia, gross misgendering, casual mentions of mildly violent bullying, people pressuring Ryder to talk about his abuse, a confrontation between an abused person and their abuser, and talk of Marley's eating disorder (discussion of relapse).
> 
> I'll talk more about Ryder's actions in this chapter at the end, but for now I will say: People cope in different ways, and there is no "right" way to recover from abuse except to do what is healthy for you. I may not agree with Ryder does, but it is what I felt his character would do.

Ryder decides that night after dinner that life is a series of cruel twists of fate. He went years without even thinking of what She did to him, and now everything is boiling and spilling over in so many ways that he’s losing track. He’d told Miss Pillsbury about Her not actually being in jail, and he’d skipped three classes because it upset him so much.

Then, when he got home, his dad reamed him for missing so much class, demanding to know where he was. Ryder still isn’t ready to tell him, so he’d made up a flimsy lie about finishing assignments and losing track of time and promising it will never happen again.

He’s lying in bed when his sister calls.

“Hello?”

“So your girlfriend is the cutest thing I’ve ever seen,” Remy says without preamble.

“What?” he says, confused. “How do you know about her?”

Remy laughs. “Look at your Facebook.”

He turns on his iPad and, sure enough, a tagged picture of him and Unique at the pizza place, huddled together and smiling at each other, is the first thing on his timeline. He smiles and saves it so that he can make it his background later, then ‘likes’ it. Marley is so sneaky, he thinks.

“Yep, that’s her,” he says, still smiling a little.

“Tell me about her! I can’t believe you didn’t let me know about this. You know I need constant updates.”

Remy is in Glasgow studying English literature at the moment. She calls him as often as she can, but a twenty year old in Scotland with a decent amount of money gets distracted, understandably.

“It barely happened,” Ryder defends. “And it’s kind of complicated.”

“Complicated?” Remy presses. “Are you having doubts?”

“What? No,” Ryder scoffs. “I just meant that we have a weird history. I really, really like her though.”

“That’s what matters then, I guess. What’s she like?”

Ryder can’t help but grin. “She’s amazing. She’s really funny and brave and she never takes anyone’s crap and she’s nice at the same time and she can never hold a grudge and she just…” he takes a breath. “She’s the best. Oh, and she’s a really good singer.”

“Oh yeah, you’re in glee club. That’s so weird to me. I never imagined you singing.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not the best or anything, but it’s fun.”

“How are Jack and Molly or whatever there names are?”

Ryder laughs. “Jake and Marley. They’re good, I think. Still together and still sickeningly in love.”

“Does it still bother you to see them like that?” Remy asks.

Ryder opens the pictures on his iPad and smiles at the picture of him and Unique.

“Not at all.”

 

* * *

 

Unique keeps trying to bring Her up, but Ryder tells her that he doesn’t want to talk about it. He never has to see Her again, and dwelling on it makes him feel like she’s back in his life or something. It makes him feel like She has power over him.

Other than that, Ryder is in awe of how…happy he is with Unique. It feels like the parts of him sewing themselves together after he’d spent so long feeling like he was falling apart. Sometimes he’ll take her hand in the hallway and she’ll bite her lip out of nervousness, but she’ll straighten up quickly and stand proud, taking the lead and pulling him along. They get shoved into lockers every day, and it takes all of his strength not to fight the people that push her, but she tells him not to, and he obeys.

It’s hard, though.

The happiness outweighs any of the bad things, in his mind. Unique says that she agrees, but he hopes that she’s telling the truth. Honestly, he knows she is, but the worry is always there regardless. His heart swells every time he walks her to class or to the bathroom and she pecks his cheek before turning away, but the fear crackles quietly as well.

It touches him to see how the whole Glee Club takes part of protecting him and Unique. It’s a little embarrassing for them to walk around him the way they do, but he often finds himself overwhelmed by how it feels to have friends like this. He’s never really had friends before, as he always spent his time studying and had never really fit in with people because of how odd he apparently is. He’s lost count at how many people Jake has pushed away from them without a word or how many girls Kitty has chased out of the bathroom with just a glare.

Figgins doesn’t dare argue with them when people complain more about Unique using the girl’s bathroom. He’s gotten too many threats about getting sued to even try and act on those complaints. All he says to Unique is that she needs to be careful and tell him if she’s physically assaulted. Ryder rolls his eyes at words, pretending like he hasn’t had nightmares about that very warning.

His nightmares aren’t every night anymore, but they’re still there and he wakes up in the middle of the night, gasping for air and needing more and more to face one particular demon.

 

* * *

 

Miss Pillsbury seems to be slightly losing her patience with him and urges him after every meeting to tell his parents and to report Her.

“She might have done it to other kids. You could change lives if you step forward.”

“I don’t even know where she is,” Ryder argues. “She could be in Africa for all I know.”

She raises an eyebrow. “You’re deflecting.”

“Well, I just don’t think there’s any point in pursuing this.”

But he’s lying, because he knows exactly where she is, and he’s borrowing his mom’s Volvo in the morning.

 

* * *

 

It isn’t hard to find her. A Facebook search finds a girl with a few mutual friends who lives in Akron now, going to college with twins of her own. It sickens him when he first figures out that She has children, only five years after what she did to him. He wants to throw up at just the sight of Her face and he hates to admit that he kind of shuts down after he looks long enough to figure out where she lives. A quick look through an online phone book gives him her address, and his hand shakes while he writes it down. He just wants to talk.

 

* * *

 

The next day, Unique asks Ryder to see a movie later on, but he tells her that his dad needs him to help with something. He doesn’t like lying to her, but he knows that if he tells her the truth, she’ll tell him not to go, or even go with him. If she goes with him, he doesn’t even want to know what Unique will do to Her. All he knows is that this is one step he has to take on his own.

 

* * *

 

A few hours later, he’s outside her apartment door. The building isn’t exactly nice, but it’s far from a bad place to live. The hallway is clean and it’s pretty quiet, though he can hear bits and pieces of conversation from different units. He wants to bang on their doors and tell them they’re living near a monster, tell them to keep their children away from her, tell them to shun her and make her feel as stupid and ashamed as he does.

It takes him almost ten minutes to knock. His hand hovers near the peephole, almost making contact but pulling away every time. Finally, he just bangs once, takes a deep breath, then knocks lighter a few more times. He can barely breathe as he waits and listens. He can focus now on the life happening on the other side of the door. He can hear a television going, along with the quick chatter of children, and the world just seems even crueler to him.

Her life sounds so normal from the outside, and he’s been trying to break out of her sick, twisted prison for five years.

The chain lock slides, followed by the deadbolt, and suddenly She’s standing there, facing away from him to talk to Her children, Her hair as long and blonde as it was five years ago.

“Please calm down, you two,” She says before turning. She doesn’t seem to realize who he is at first, and that makes him angry enough to kill. Eventually, his face seems to register in Her memory, though, because she freezes.

“Ryder,” She whispers, more to Herself than anyone else.

He can’t speak. Her face fills him with fear and disgust, even though She seems just as afraid as he does. Part of him wants to hurt Her and part of him wants to run as far away as he can until he disappears and She can never find him.

“Ryder, what are you—,”

“Are these your kids?” he interrupts, looking past her to study them. They’re a boy and a girl, both with messy brown hair and brown eyes, so different from their mother. She nods, her eyes still wide with fear.

“They seem like good kids,” he says with a small nod. “Hope you don’t fuck them up the way you fucked me up.”

She takes a sharp breath. “Please don’t curse around--,”

“No,” he says with a bitter laugh, finally looking her in the eyes and letting his rage overpower his fear. “You don’t tell me what to do. Don’t even fucking _dare._ You don’t get to do anything but listen,”

“Ryder,” She tries again.

“I’m talking now,” he interjects sharply. She nods and closes her mouth.

“I’ve been having nightmares for five years,” he practically shouts. He takes a breath and lowers his voice. “They only got bad recently, when I finally told someone what you did to me, but they’ve been there for years.

“After you did that to me, I didn’t shower for weeks. Did you know that? I was so fucking afraid of you coming back that I would just sit there while the bathroom got all steamy and hot and I’d hold whatever I could to protect myself,” he shakes his head at the memory, tears threatening to build. “Of course, that didn’t stop you those other times on the couch or in my bedroom, but I was always more afraid of the shower for some reason.”

Her children watch from their place on Her couch, their curiosity piqued. She is frozen, tears falling freely down her face. She manages to turn around.

“Go to your room, please. I’ll be done in a few minutes,” She says quickly. He wants to laugh and tell her, ‘no, you’ll never be done’, but he just breathes as evenly as he can manage.

“I can barely be in a room alone with a girl,” he continues after a few seconds. “Do you know how embarrassing that is? One time a girl tried to make out with me, and I had a fucking panic attack on her bed because she touched me wrong and all I could think of was you doing that to me. And then I kept pulling my hair and hitting myself because I didn’t know what else to do, and that’s _your_ fault.

“Then when I told my friends what happened to me, some of them told me that I should have _liked_ it. They told me that I was lucky that some seventeen-year-old girl came into the shower and _molested_ me. Do you know how worthless that made me feel? Do you know how much I wanted to _die_ in that moment?” He’s crying now, and he wipes angrily at his tears. “Sometimes I wish I _would_ have died so that you could live with this instead of me. You’re sitting here with your nice apartment and your beautiful kids and _I_ barely managed to open up to one girl who, luckily enough, is on my side when it comes to you. I’m barely getting through every day and I don’t even remember what it’s like to go to sleep without crying first, and you’re here, trying to tell me what to do.”

Her body shakes with sobs, but it’s like he’s lost all feeling except anger.

“But you know what,” he says, his voice breaking and tears running into his mouth. “I _forgive_ you. I forgive you for being sick and twisted and disgusting. I can’t live my life with this…this darkness in my heart anymore. I might still hate what you did, but I forgive you. My girlfriend and my counselor want me to report you, but I came here to tell you that I’m not going to.”

“Th-thank you,” She stutters out after staring at him in shock for a few moments.

“It’s not for you,” he says, and She closes her mouth tightly. “It’s for me. It’s for those kids. You know, I was going to do it. I was going to go to the police and tell them everything. I was going to find the other kids you babysat, because I’ll bet you anything that I’m not the only one; but then I saw those kids and I don’t want them to live a life without their mother. I can tell by the way they look at you that they’re okay. I can tell that they still think you hang the moon. I believe you’ve changed, but I’m not going to stop anyone else from doing anything to you. If any of them want to turn you in, I’ll testify in a fucking heartbeat. Do you understand?”

She nods quickly and wipes the tears from Her cheeks.

“Ryder, you have understand…I was a really bad person then. Maybe I’m still a bad person, I don’t know; I feel like one. I’m so sorry for what I did to you. Not a day goes by where I don’t want to throw up at how disgusting I was, and I just…I’m sorry,”

He opens his mouth to tell Her that he knows, that’s it’s fine, but he shuts it after some consideration. It hits him, then: sometimes it’s okay to _not_ be okay. Sometimes it’s better for things to _not_ be fine, because some things can’t be brushed off with kindness or tenderness or forgiveness. He can forgive Her for what she did, but he can never say that it’s okay or that he’s going to be okay, because it isn’t, and he might not.

“I hope you remember this,” he says fiercely, his voice stuffy, but strong. “I hope you remember this fucked up kid yelling at you from your door, because now maybe you’ll think twice before you do it to someone else.”

“I wouldn’t--,”

“I’m not finished,” he snaps. “I’m a nice person and a somewhat good looking person and I’m white and well-off and athletic, but I still don’t see a future for myself because _you_ made me feel like I’m nothing. I want you to imagine your children feeling worthless the next time you want to hurt someone the way you hurt me.”

Ryder doesn’t wait to see her react. He straightens his posture, turns, and walks away. Every step down the apartment building’s stairs feels like falling through feet of empty space and he strangely feels lighter and heavier at the same time. He’s heavy with the emotions he didn’t know he had, with a better understanding of what She had done to him, but he’s lighter now that he’s seen Her and he’s said almost everything he’s ever wanted to tell her.

He slides into his car and starts the playlist Unique made on his iPod because those songs are all full of hope and love. Emeli Sande sings through his speakers and he manages to feel content stir in his chest for the first time that he can remember.

 

* * *

 

Ryder doesn’t go home right away after driving into Lima. He heads to Unique’s house instead and calls her from outside.

“Hey, come out here; let’s go for a ride.”

She walks out her front door a few minutes later, a blue scarf around her head and the skirt of her purple dress flowing softly behind her. She slides into the passenger seat and Ryder leans over immediately to press his lips against hers. Unique makes a tiny noise of surprising before returning his kiss, her hand coming up to rub her thumb along his cheek. His hand settles on her waist, fingers digging into her skin as though he’s holding on for dear life.

She pulls away, panting. “What’s going on?”

“Let’s go find somewhere to talk first.”

So he drives around until they get to a park not far from her house. There’s a swingset, so he takes her hand and leads her to it. They settle into the two swings that look the least broken, and clasp their hands in the space between.

Ryder doesn’t speak right away, and Unique finally blurts, “Are we breaking up?”

He turns to her in shock. “What? No! Why wouldn’t you think that?”

“I don’t know,” she mumbles. “You’re making me nervous.”

“I’m sorry,” he says quickly. “I just have something really important to tell you, and I think you might get mad when I say it.”

“Just say it,” she says quickly. “I’ll do my best to stay calm.”

Ryder takes a deep breath and tightens his grip on her hand. He stares down at his shoes, watching them push the sand beneath them into small piles and revealing the dark, wet earth underneath.

“I went to see Her today.”

Unique freezes and his swing drags to stop after.

“Tell me I did not just hear you say that you went to see your abuser, alone, without telling anyone where you were going.”

He sighs and lets go of her hand, clasping it instead on the chain of the swing. “I told you that you’d be mad.”

“I’m not mad - no, that’s a lie, I’m _furious_ , but only because you could have been hurt. Ryder, do you realize how…irresponsible that was?” Her voice is high and strained and worried and he knows that if he were to turn right now, he’d see tears in her eyes.

“I just…I needed to tell her what she did to me. I needed to confront her.”  
“You should have at least taken Jake with--,”

“I needed to do this myself,” he interrupts. “I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you and I know that it was stupid, but…I knew that she couldn’t hurt me anymore. That’s the only reason I went; so I could tell her that she can’t hurt me anymore.”

Ryder chances a look and sees a mixed look of pride and fear on his girlfriend’s face.

“I’m sorry,” he repeats in a whisper, grabbing the chain of her swing and pulling her to him. She gives him a sad smile and uses both hands to pull his face toward hers. He grins into the kiss, pulling away to kiss her cheek. His lips linger there and he rests his forehead against the side of hers, feeling overwhelmingly _safe_.

“I just don’t want to be worrying about you all day, baby,” she whispers back.

Ryder pulls away and smirks. “Baby?”

Unique smacks his arm lightly. “Boy, shush.”

“Should I call you ‘honey pie’?” He teases, and she giggles. “Maybe ‘sweetums’?”

She rolls her eyes and pushes back on her swing. “You’re so weird. I don’t know why I put up with you. Unique was looking for a sophisticated romance.”

“Oh, I can be sophisticated,” he says before standing and moving in front of her. Ryder bows and Unique laughs. “Might I escort you back to our chariot, where I will deliver you safely home?”

Unique feigns disinterest, examining her nails and avoiding his eyes. “And I am just supposed to trust you, handsome-but-entirely-goofy stranger?” She takes his hand anyway, standing to her feet and lacing her fingers through his. He pulls her close and embraces her tightly.

“You’re so brave,” she says softly. “Entirely too compulsive, but brave nonetheless.”

“I learned from the best,” he responds, flicking on the back of her scarf to make her smile. “Took a few pointers from my girlfriend.”

“Cheesy,” she says immediately.

“You love it.”

“No comment.”

Their hands swing between them as they make their way back to Ryder’s car.

 

* * *

 

“Remy called yesterday,” his father says over dinner a few nights later. Ryder had been with Unique, Marley, and Sugar the night before, watching Grease and seeing how many parts they could sing. They politely let Sugar think she could sing anything.

“Oh, yeah?” Ryder asks, not really listening. He’d Skyped Remy not a week before.

“Yes. She said you have a girlfriend,”

Ryder freezes. He’d forgotten to tell her not to tell their parents, and now their mother is probably offended that he hasn’t told her yet, and that he didn’t tell her first. It’s not that he’s ashamed of Unique, but they’d both agreed that it was a complicated relationship, especially in terms of sexuality. He just didn’t know what to tell his dad when he would inevitably ask questions.

“Um…yeah. It’s nothing…I mean, it’s a recent thing.”

“Remy said she’s a black girl. Is she Ron Tinsley’s daughter? She’s pretty,”

Ryder shakes his head, barely remembering the girl his father is talking about.

“Uh, no, I met her in Glee club. She’s Marley’s friend.”

His father doesn’t say anything, and Ryder knows that he’s watching him closely. He continues to twirl some pasta onto a fork and tries to pretend like he’s struggling so that he doesn’t have to look up.

“Is there something you want to tell me, Ryder?” his father asks.

“Like what?”

“Are you gay?” his father asks flatly.

Ryder furrows his eyebrows and looks up. “No. I just told you that I have a girlfriend.”

His father sighs and looks at him. “Come now, Ryder. I know that the Adams boy--,”

“Girl,” Ryder corrects sharply, trying to control his anger. “She’s a girl.”

“Ryder, that’s a boy in a dress.”

“ _She_ is a woman, Dad. Don’t talk about things you don’t understand.”

His father shakes his head and sets down his fork. “I’m not trying to judge him—“

“Her,”

“Or say he’s—“

“She’s,”

“Something he’s not. I just don’t think it’s a good idea for you to be in a relationship with… _her_.”

Ryder slams his fork down. “Unbelievable. You’re going to do this now? You’re going to take this away from me, even after all the work I’ve done with school? I do everything you tell me, I do everything I can to make you proud, and you want to take away the one person who makes me happy?”

“Son, I just want you to be safe,”

“You know, Dad, with all due respect, you don’t know anything about my girlfriend or my relationship. We’re not going to hide and we’re not afraid of some assholes that don’t have the balls to ignore what they don’t like. And we have a ton of friends who have our backs, so you can talk all you want about “safety”, Dad, but I guarantee you that we’ve already thought about it.”

His father’s face is red now, a mixture of fear and anger. “I will not be spoken to like this.”

“Whatever,” Ryder says, standing up and throwing his napkin on the table. “Thanks for dinner.”

“Sit down!” Ryder stops and turns to his dad. He doesn’t sit, but he waits.

“I’m telling you as your father, as someone who loves you, to stop whatever you’re doing with that boy.”  
“SHE’S A GIRL!” Ryder yells, angry tears springing forward in his eyes. “And I love her!”

He doesn’t think when he says it, but when he does, he knows that it’s true.

His father freezes, his mouth open and ready to yell something, but he doesn’t. Instead, he closes his mouth and buries his head in his hands. Ryder takes that as his cue to leave.

 

* * *

 

“What’s wrong?” Unique asks the next morning when she finds Ryder sitting outside the choir room before classes begin. She hands him a hot chocolate and he feels like he’s going to explode if he doesn’t tell her that he loves her.

“I couldn’t really sleep last night,” he lies.

There’s no point in upsetting her.

 

* * *

 

Unique catches Marley in the bathroom after lunch, falling to her old demons, and Ryder doesn’t see much of anyone outside of Glee club or classes for a few weeks. Sometimes Marley chooses to sit with him at lunch because she knows that he’s not as pushy as the rest of her friends. They’re usually joined by Joe and Sam, who don’t pressure her into anything either.

It doesn’t make it hurt any less to watch her suffer.

And it doesn’t help that he’s secretly grateful that Miss Pillsbury has forgotten about him for the time being.

Unique pretends like it doesn’t bother her that Marley will choose Ryder over her, but Ryder knows better. He reassures her every day that the reason Marley chooses him is because he’s _not_ as good of a friend as Unique, but he knows it kills her to watch Marley hurting again. Kitty skips days of school at a time until Unique yells at her to step up and take care of Marley with the rest of them.

“This is your doing, and you’re going to help my girl get better,” Unique snaps when she finds Kitty in the choir room, alone.

Millie still can’t afford to hospitalize Marley, so they settle for her talking to Miss Pillsbury three times a week and visiting the specialist as much as they can afford, which isn’t much. The Glee club takes to watching over her, which she hates, but they don’t know what else to do.

“We just want to help you,” Blaine pleads, and Marley storms out, dragging Unique by the hand behind her.

Ryder can tell that it’s taking all of Jake’s will to keep it together, as he always does. He exudes calm and reason, but Ryder knows that fear and desperation is stirring beneath the surface. Jake’s hands are almost always balled into fists; his jaw clenched and eyes full with a plethora of emotion.

One day, Ryder walks into Unique’s room (her parents are gone and he has a key) to see her holding Marley in her arms while they both cry. The image shakes him: Unique soundlessly stroking Marley’s hair, tears streaming down her face, and Marley shaking, her mouth open in a silent scream. He doesn’t know what to do, so he walks over, kisses both of their foreheads, and walks out.

 

* * *

 

After everyone seems to calm down about Marley’s relapse into her old ways and she seems to be recovering well, Ryder decides that he needs to help Unique escape for a bit. He drives to outskirts of Lima and parks near a hill where he used to go with Remy. He lays out a blanket and some pillows and a glass bottle of ginger ale with two champagne flutes.

“What are we doing?” Unique asks with a side-eye.

“We’re going to watch the stars and just…escape for a while.”

Unique doesn’t say anything, but lies down next to him on the blanket.

They talk about different things, like Remy in Scotland or Unique’s parents, and before they know it, the bottle of ginger ale is practically gone and night has fallen. Stars begin to poke of out the blanket of darkness in the sky and Ryder marvels at them as he always has.

“Please tell me a barbershop quartet is coming or something,” Unique deadpans after almost five minutes of silence. Ryder laughs.

“Just appreciate the beauty of nature,” he responds and Unique huffs.

“Child, I am about to go appreciate the beauty of a contained space with no bugs.”

“Shh,” he says before turning over and kissing her cheek. She turns her head and his lips slide naturally over hers in an action that has become second nature to them.

“I was kidding,” Unique whispers between soft kisses. “This is beautiful.”

“I love you,” he breathes against her lips. Her breath catches and neither of them move. The air crackles between them, and Ryder begins to regret saying it so soon, hates that he’s freaked her out, opens his mouth to make an awkward joke, but she turns onto her back and he realizes that she’s crying.

“Babe?” he says, worried. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t—“

“I love you, too,” she says before throwing her arm across her eyes and letting out a sob.

“What’s wrong? Talk to me,” he pleads, sitting up and watching her.

“I just…” she takes a shaky breath and removes her arm to look at him with tear-filled eyes. “I feel like I’m going to wake up and all of this will have been a dream. You’re so…you’re everything I’ve ever wanted and I don’t know what I did to deserve you.”

Ryder smiles and leans down to kiss her. “I think the same exact thing every single day,” he says after he pulls away. “And I think that we were meant to find each other."

“My parents found out about us,” Unique confesses. “They think we’re being irresponsible and should stop.”

“My dad said the same thing.”

“And what do you think about that?” Unique asks, her voice hesitant.

“I think that they don’t know who the fuck they’re dealing with,” Ryder responds, and Unique lets out a loud, unhindered laugh that makes Ryder feel perfect.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gah. That chapter. *shakes head*.  
> The reason I had Ryder decide not to report his abuser was simply that: he doesn’t have someone telling him how important disclosure is, and the only people who know and feel his anger are Jake, Unique, Marley, and Kitty (and perhaps Tina or Mr. Schue). In my mind, Miss Pillsbury is great at her job, but largely unprepared for a lot of serious issues (I’m mostly thinking about her blowing off Rachel when Rachel had questions about sex). To be honest, a lot of Ryder’s reactions were drawn from my own experiences, which some may consider lazy writing, but I think that they fit his character. Like I said before, I don’t condone his actions and I think the right thing to do would be to report Her, but I also don’t think Ryder is a person who would do that, not only because he is still coping with what happened to him and still feels shame, but because, in his mind, he expects the world to react like Artie and Sam.  
> Also, like I said in the beginning of this chapter, people cope and deal with things differently. The fact is, Ryder finds a huge amount of closure in what he does, even if it would be better for him to report her.   
> I don’t believe in “fix-it fic. “ The reason why is because I know life doesn’t work out perfectly. I prefer flawed, anger-inducing stories. I understand if anyone doesn’t want to continue, but this is the story I wanted to tell, and I promise that Ryder will have a happy ending.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter include: transphobic language, attitudes, and attempted violence; violence in the form of a fist fight; pressure to disclose; mentions of disordered eating (including well-meaning pressure to eat); a panic attack; self-injury in the form of scratching (no blood) and hair pulling. As always, there is strong discussion of Ryder's sexual abuse.

Miss Pillsbury eventually tracks him down one day after chemistry and convinces Ryder to talk to her during his free period. He goes and doesn’t say much, just sits there quietly, awkwardly.

“I feel like we’ve regressed,” she says after a few minutes. “Do you agree?”

“I don’t know what that means,” Ryder replies.

“I feel like we’ve lost some of the progress we made before the Marley situation.”

Ryder sighs. “I’m just kind of stressed. The school year is almost over, Nationals is coming up, plus I have to deal with assholes who push me and my girlfriend around.”

Miss Pillsbury leans forward with interest. “How is your relationship going, if I may ask? I know that it’s probably stressful, since you both went through separate problems before you got together.”

Ryder can’t help but smile. “It’s great. I mean, yeah, it can be stressful, but not because of her. It’s everyone else.”

Miss Pillsbury returns his smile. “I think it’s really brave of you two to be as public as you are. If I’ve learned anything at this school, it’s that kids shouldn’t have to hide who they are.”

Ryder nods in response, not knowing what to say.

“When we met last, you told me that your abuser didn’t actually go to prison. I’d really like to talk about that.”

Ryder takes a deep breath. “What do you want to know?”

“Why did you tell Will that she did?”

“I didn’t want my parents to find out.”

“And why is that?”

“I don’t want them to worry about it. I’ve told you this. Besides She has kids now and--,”

“How do you know that?” Miss Pillsbury interjects, worry written clearly on her face. Ryder internally kicks himself for the slip.

“I…” he can’t think of an excuse for knowing, though there are probably a ton. He’s only been able to tell one lie in his life, and that secret has flown out the window.

“Ryder,” Miss Pillsbury says calmly in a way that is very clearly contained. “How do you know your abuser has kids?”

He braces himself for her reaction. “I confronted her a few weeks ago. I found out she was in Akron and went to her apartment.”

“Ryder,” she whispers. She closes her eyes and Ryder can almost see her counting to ten. “Ryder, that was so dangerous.”

“I know,” he says. “But I needed to talk to her. And I decided that I’m not going to report her.”

Miss Pillsbury sighs and shakes her head softly. “I respect your decision, but I hope you’ll reconsider. I know it might seem like she’s changed, but abusers are always abusers and you need to remember that. I’m not saying you should live in fear, but I just think that giving her consequences will prevent her from doing this ever again; not to mention that it might empower other victims.”

“Look, I don’t expect you to understand, okay? I’m really grateful that you listen to me talk about this and you’re on my side and all, but I don’t want this to blow up or to be a bigger deal than it already is.”

Miss Pillsbury says nothing, just examines him as though he’s hiding something in his body language. He hates when she does this, because he knows that she is scarily accurate when she assumes things from how he holds himself.

“Listen, I’m fine, okay? I know that you don’t agree with what I did, but ever since I started seeing you and dating Unique and talking about what happened to me, things in my life have gotten better. I haven’t had a single nightmare since I confronted Her, by the way.”

She gives him a sad smile. “That’s great, Ryder. I’m happy that this is helping you. I just hope that you’ll feel safe enough to tell your parents soon.”

Ryder sighs. “We’ll see.”

 

* * *

 

He hears Jake before he sees him.

  
“Back the fuck off!” Jake yells, and Ryder lets out a breathy “shit,” before jogging toward the sound of his best friend’s voice.

Unique is standing against the wall with wide, terrified eyes and Jake is on the ground, beating the crap out of some hockey player while a small crowd looks on.

“Jake!” Ryder yells, pushing through people and running over to pull him off. “Stop, you’re going to get suspended!”

“Say that to her again! Why don’t you try pulling that shit with _me_ instead of a girl, huh?” Jake screams to the hockey player, who is trying valiantly to break free from Jake’s hold. Ryder pulls insistently at his arms, but Jake keeps shaking him off.

Suddenly, the hockey player flips Jake over and begins to punch him in return. Unique screams and most of the crowd cheers in favor of player (Ryder thinks his name might be Howie.)

“Get off!” Ryder yells, throwing down his backpack and using all of his strength to pull Howie off.

“Don’t touch me, fag!” Howie says, pulling out of Ryder’s hands and backing up. “You and your tranny boyfriend need to stay away from me.”

“What the fuck did you just call her?” Ryder asks loudly, his fists balling up and his vision getting hazy with anger.

“Ryder, don’t, just stop,” Unique begs. “Just stop, you’re going to get in trouble.”

“What’s going on out here?” Mr. Schuester comes around the corner and gapes at the crowd. “Where are you all supposed to be?”

The students disperse until only Jake, Ryder, Sugar (who Ryder hadn’t noticed) and Unique are left standing in the hallway. Sugar is hugging Unique, comforting her and rubbing her back softly.

“What happened, Jake?” Mr. Schue asks, briefly glancing over at Unique with worried eyes.

“That _douchebag_ was pushing her around and calling her that… _word_ , so I told him to back off. He pushed me first,” he says quickly. “I didn’t start anything, you can check the cameras. I was just defending Unique.”

“And you, Ryder? What happened when you got here?”

Ryder doesn’t even realize he’s rocking on his heels and shaking his head until Jake walks over and stills him.

“I went looking for Jake after I heard him yell, and when I got here, they were fighting. A bunch of other kids were just watching and cheering on that Howie kid.”

Mr. Schue sighs and shakes his head. “Okay, let’s go tell Principal Figgins. Come on, Unique; Sugar, go ahead and go to class. I’ll be there after I sort this out.”

Jake, Unique and Ryder follow Mr. Schue to the office, the boys filled with rage. Ryder wants to go find that Howie and fight him himself after hearing about him pushing around Unique, but her hand in his reminds him that fighting will help no one.

“The good thing about this is that there will be consequences for him,” Mr. Schue says absentmindedly. “If the camera caught him being violent, then he’ll be suspended.” He puts a comforting hand on Unique’s shoulder, and she nods. Ryder notices for the first time that there are tears in her eyes, and he leans down to kiss her head quickly, squeezing her hand.

 

* * *

 

“Suspended?” Mr. Schue asks incredulously. Jake is gaping at Principal Figgins. “He was defending his friend and himself!”

“My hands are tied, William,” Mr. Figgins says, and Ryder wants to reach across the desk and strangle him. Howie, who joined them later, is wearing a smug smile and Ryder _really_ wants to hurt him. “We have a zero tolerance policy against violence.”

“Bullshit,” Jake says, finally. “This school is bullshit. So now I’m the bad guy for defending her from this asshole? He pushed me first; was I just supposed to stand there and take it?”

Figgins just shakes his head. “Mr. Camden will receive a ten-day suspension and you will get four days. It’s the best I can do. I suggest you lose the inappropriate language if you don’t want a longer punishment.”

Jake shakes his head and breathes deeply.

“Jake shouldn’t be suspended at all,” Ryder protests. “He should get a freakin’ award or something. He was being a good person.”

“Your parents will be here shortly. Miss Unique Adams, I’m going to excuse you for the rest of the day and you may return home if you wish. Mr. Lynn, I’m going to have to ask you to return to class immediately. This is the best I can do.”

“Bullshit,” Jake repeats. Unique shushes him.

“Thank you, Principal Figgins,” she says.

“I truly am sorry, Mr. Puckerman. I need to enforce these rules if they are to retain their integrity. Miss Adams, I’m sorry you had to go through this today. You and Mr. Lynn may go now.”

No one has anything else to say, so Ryder, Unique, and Mr. Schue stand to leave the room. Unique pulls Jake up by the hand to hug him.

“Thank you,” she says. “You were Unique’s knight in shining armor.”

Jake manages to grin. “Anytime.”

Ryder gives him a hug as well, and Mr. Schue gives him a pat on the shoulder.

“We’ll make sure you stay caught up with your work,” he reassures Jake. “I’ll talk to your teachers and see if I can’t get you excused from some assignments.”

The three of them leave, idling in the hallway awkwardly before Mr. Schue gives them both a nod and a sad smile and returning to his classroom.

“I can’t believe this,” Unique finally says, and Ryder pulls her into a hug instantly. She buries her face into his chest and he rests his chin on her head, feeling awful because she shouldn’t have to deal with these things.

“Those people will understand, one day,” Ryder whispers, and he can feel her nod. “You say it to me everyday, and it’s true.”

“Sometimes I just feel so _tired_ ,” she confesses, her voice thick with her silent crying. “I hate that people need to protect me and I hate that I got my friend suspended and I hate the people who make me feel so damn _wrong!_ ”

Ryder pulls back and tilts her chin up so she’s looking at him. Tears are streaming and smeared on her face, her perfect makeup now smudged. She just looks so… _powerless_. It’s jarring, to see that look in her eyes and to hear her talk of hating people. It’s so unlike her that he realizes that maybe he hasn’t been the best boyfriend he can be.

He takes one of her hands and places it over his heart. She sniffles, looking up at him, confused.

“There’s nothing ‘wrong’ about you,” Ryder insists. “You’re a beautiful girl who I love more than anything. You know who you are,” he says, wiping tears away from her cheek with his thumb. “They can never take that away from you.”

 

* * *

 

Even though the school certainly must have called him about the fight, the only thing Ryder’s father says when he gets back from Unique’s is: “Your mother called and asked if you could call her back,”

After that, he retreats to his office and Ryder watches the door for several long moments after he disappears. He doesn’t call his mother; he’s not in the mood.

 

* * *

 

Jake’s back by the next week, and almost everyone is a little afraid of him. He walks with a purpose, a vengeance, and his glares are about twenty times scarier than usual. Absolutely no one tries to bother them that week, not even when Jake isn’t around.

“Damn, girl, your man scared off all the assholes,” Unique says to Marley as they walk, pinkies linked, to the cafeteria. Ryder trails behind, playing Tetris on his phone.

“For now,” he says absentmindedly, internally cursing when he drops a block too early. “They’ll be back when they think it’s safe.”

“Well, I’m going to bask in this while I can,” Unique answers.

“Who knows, maybe he scared them away for longer than we think,” Marley points out. “Now that everyone knows that Figgins is sort of on our side, maybe they’ll back off.”

“Or they’ll just be more careful,” Unique muses. “That could be scary.”

Marley and Ryder don’t say anything in response; they just follow Unique into the cafeteria. People’s voices hush when they walk by, but Ryder ignores them since he’s grown used to it.

“Lord Jesus, it’s Burrito Day!” Unique exclaims, scurrying away from them.  Ryder and Marley examine what else there is that day, but nothing looks particularly appetizing, especially not the hot lunch that Marley has to get.

“I’ll buy you something, if you want. That doesn’t look very good,” Ryder offers.

Marley bites her lip in hesitation. “I don’t know, maybe I’ll just--,” she stops before Ryder can protest. “Never mind. Yes, thank you, that would be wonderful.”

They both buy wraps, Ryder’s turkey and Marley’s a veggie one. They find a place to sit and nibble at their food while Unique makes her way over.

“This burrito looks awful. I don’t know why I was so excited.”

Ryder laughs in response, holding out a carrot for her. “Better luck next time, maybe.” She takes it and sticks her tongue out at him.

Tina plops down next to Marley and casually throws a handful of grapes onto the younger girl’s napkin.

“Merry Christmas,” she says absentmindedly. “Did you guys hear about Mr. Schue’s big argument with Figgins?”

“No,” Unique says immediately, leaning forward. “Spill,” she commands.

“Okay, so you know how no teachers broke up Jake’s fight with Howie until Mr. Schue got there? Apparently, he went to go talk to the teachers whose classrooms are in that hallway, and they were all really rude to him and basically--,”

“They didn’t stop it because it was us,” Ryder finishes. Tina nods and he throws down his wrap in disgust. “Fucking assholes.”

“Yeah, and so Mr. Schue went to report them to Figgins, but you know how he doesn’t like ruffling feathers, so he did, like, nothing. Said that he can’t prove those teachers even knew anything was happening.”

“That’s terrible,” Marley says, popping a grape into her mouth after a long hesitation.

“Yeah, what are the chances that when Mr. Schue actually tries to do something, nothing happens?” Tina asks with raised eyebrows.

“It’s a damn shame, is what it is,” Unique says. “I guess I’ll make sure to stay away from that part of the school,” Ryder wraps an arm around her. “How did you even find out about that?” Unique asks.

“Blaine told--,” Tina starts.

“TINA!” Blaine says loudly, walking briskly over. “Tell me you didn’t go blabbing about what I told you,”

She looks around sheepishly. “Um,”

Blaine sighs and sits down. “I’m sorry, guys. I figured it would be easier if you didn’t know.” He sets a little cup of celery in front of Marley. “Happy birthday.”

Marley rolls her eyes, but picks one up to nibble on anyway. Ryder’s pretty sure that they’re not supposed to pressure her like this, but she doesn’t seem to be stressing about it.

“No, I’m glad she told us,” Unique says. “We need to know who’s on our side.”

Unique spots Jake and turns to the rest of them quickly. “Don’t tell him,” she whispers. “We don’t need him getting suspended again.”

They all nod in agreement and Blaine launches into a list of set list suggestions.

“No Katy Perry,” Jake says immediately after sitting down. Blaine and Tina pout and the rest erupt into laughs and giggles.

Ryder looks around at these people and wonders how he managed to be lucky enough to end up here after all of the schools he flunked out of, after all of the lonely days of working hard and the lonely nights of studying, after wondering if he’d ever be able to love a girl after what happened to him…here he is with a loyal group of friends and a girlfriend who’s taught him more about forgiveness and trust than anyone ever has.

Life might not be easy, Ryder thinks, but it’s pretty damn good.

 

* * *

 

Glee rehearsal consists of a lot of choreography, and Ryder is beat by the time he gets home, not to mention sweaty. He just wants to take a shower and call Unique and go to bed. Unfortunately, his mother has other ideas.

“Finally,” she says when Ryder walks through the door. “I’ve been here since four.”

“Mom?” Ryder says with a furrowed brow. “What are you doing here?”

She sits at the dining room table, as cool and composed as ever, but with a trace of high-strung obsessiveness lurking beneath the surface.

“I’ve been trying to get a hold of you for days, Ryder. I miss my son.”

He knows very well that she’s using guilt to get him to tell her about his life so she can make judgments, but she let him borrow her car without question to go to Akron, so he feels like maybe he owes her some time.

“Sorry, Mom; I feel like I barely have time to sleep anymore.”

She nods. “I heard your average is up to a C+ now. I’m so proud.”

To her credit, she looks genuinely happy to see him, so he sits down and gives her a smile. “Thanks, Mom. That means a lot.”

“So about this girlfriend Remy tells me about—“

He sighs. “Mom,”

“I figured you’d tell me after borrowing my Volvo, but you didn’t. And then I get a call from your father, worrying about you being gay.”

Ryder rolls his eyes and shakes his head. “I’m not gay—“

“That what I told him,” his mother says primly, checking her Blackberry briefly. “I told him, ‘If Ryder is dating a boy, then he must not know he’s a boy or that is a very _pretty_ boy.’”

“She’s a girl,” Ryder says simply. “Dad might not understand her, but she’s a girl and her name is Unique.”

“Well, the good thing is that it doesn’t matter if your father understands her or not. You clearly do.”

Ryder gapes at his mom, starting to feel a little choked up. His mother has always been the more conservative of his parents, very straight-laced and uptight. It’s why he had chosen to live with his father after the divorce.

“You’re not—you don’t think I’m gay?”

“Of course not. I wouldn’t care if you were, but you’re dating a girl and you’ve only ever liked girls, so that’s telling me you’re not. And I’ve seen that girl at your competitions; she’s as cute as can be. “

“Mom,” Ryder starts, his voice thick. “Thank you. You don’t—I didn’t expect you to be so…”

“Understanding?” she offers. “Flawless? Absolutely the best parent in the world?”

Ryder smiles. “Exactly.”

“I took a lot of gender studies in college, honey. A man as smart as your father should have, too; I promise you that if you explain it to him the best way that you can, he’ll understand.”

“I shouldn’t have to explain myself,” Ryder protests. “He should just trust that I know who I am and that my girlfriend knows who she is. We’re not babies.”

“Well, you’re _my_ baby,” his mother teases. “But you know that the world is full of people who just don’t _know_. I’m not going to pretend I understand completely, but I hope you know that I trust your judgment.” She takes his hand in hers and clasps it tightly. “You’ve proven so much this past year, Ryder. You’ve been through so much, and here you are with your grades and your Glee club and the musical…I’m so proud.” Her eyes shine with proud tears and Ryder smiles.

“Thank you, Mom. Seriously,”

She gives him a teary smile and wipes her eyes before continuing,

“So, what else is new with you? I feel like we haven’t talked in so long.”

Ryder stares at her, feeling overwhelmingly sure he can trust her with The Secret. Her eyes are shining with love and he knows that this is something she needs to know. She might not have always been this interested and accepting, but she’s still his mother and he knows she loves him.

“I actually do have something I want to tell you,” he begins, trying to stop his voice from shaking. “But I don’t…I don’t want you to see me differently after I do.”

Her face takes a look of concern. “What is it?”

His whole body feels like it’s going to collapse, but he tightens his hands into fists and looks her in the eye.

“I—,”

The words are so hard to get out. How had he done it with the Glee club? It had felt so much easier then; his words certainly didn’t feel stuck in his throat like they do now.

His mother blinks back at him, her expression welcoming and cautious.

“Ryder?”

He clears his throat and lets out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.

“It’s kind of hard to--,”

_BRRRRR-ING. BRRRRR-ING._

His mother jumps at the noise and looks down at her phone. “Oh, honey, I’m so sorry; this client was supposed to call me like three hours ago and it’s really important. I promise it’ll only be a few minutes, just hold that thought,” His mother grabs her Blackberry and quickly walks from the dining room, holding her finger out in the universal ‘just a minute’ sign. He can hear her muffled voice still talking, but he feels like he’s crashed back to earth after hovering above for weeks.

Of course he’s not going to tell her. She doesn’t need to know, she doesn’t want to know, she won’t care, she won’t listen, she’ll ignore him, she’ll tell him he imagined it or that he’s lying or that things like that can’t happen to boys and maybe he just misunderstood what was happening, maybe his mind made it up, maybe he just wants attention—

 

* * *

 

 

Ryder closes the door behind his mother after telling her a watered-down version of the fight instead of The Secret. She scolds him gently before telling him she needs to get home.

“Don’t be such a stranger, honey,” she says before leaving. He promises he won’t.

He sighs with relief as he hears her car drive away and begins to pace his house, looking for something to occupy him.

He’s been frantic before, but this is different; this scares him. He’s had panic attacks, ones he never told his father about where he would lie in his bed crying for hours, but this feels like it’s going to be worse.  He straightens the picture frames hanging on the wall, puts the dishes in the dishwasher, switches clothes over to the dryer, and alphabetizes the DVD’s, but he still feels panicky. He decides to just get ready for bed.

He’s not really thinking as he gets into the shower; it’s all part of his nighttime routine, nothing special about it except that he feels like he’s about to have a nervous breakdown and he can’t control it. In retrospect, he should have known that showering was probably not the best thing to do.

It starts out okay, and he sighs when the warm water hits his back and begins to soak into his hair. It feels nice, after the stretch of the day and the rigorous dance rehearsal and the talk with his mom.

But then he remembers.

He’s been so good at not thinking about it while in the shower.

It’s like her hands are right there on his hips again. He can practically feel her thumbs pressing into his hipbones, can almost feel those hands moving in—

“No, no, no,” he says, closing his eyes and shaking his head. He’s not sure if he’s crying. The water is washing away at everything.

He feels small again, and he hates it. He keeps repeating ‘no’ over and over again, as if the word will chase away every memory and thought of That. His hands scratch at his skin, trying to pry the feeling of her hands and fingers and skin away, the pain contrasting sharply with the thrum of the water. He blossoms pink underneath his nails, strips of color standing out against his pale complexion.

His breath comes out short and shallow and he backs up until he’s touching the wall of the shower, the temperature shockingly colder than the water’s. His hands move from his skin up to his hair yet again, and he pulls like he always has when he can’t run from what happened to him.

The water keeps beating against his body and it feels like his thoughts come even faster, with an equally constant stream. He feels like he can’t control anything anymore, so he slides down the wall and sobs on the floor, curled into the fetal position, until long after the water runs cold. 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for such a long break between updates! If any of you follow me on tumblr or even know me, you know how devastated I was about Cory's death (along with everyone else in the fandom). It was hard for me to write while being reminded of him with any mention of Glee, but I've finally finished this chapter and am well into the next. Thank you for your continued reading! This story is winding to close, though I'm not sure how many chapters are left. I would estimate about three, but that's not set in stone. 
> 
> Also, just for reference, this story is AU from All or Nothing. Now that we have details about the season 5 prom, I debated whether I should wait so that I can write around it, but I've decided to go ahead with my own plans instead, though some things from this next season may be littered throughout.
> 
> Warnings for: the aftermath of a mental breakdown (including not seeking help or guidance), verbal harassment, mentions of the catfish incident again, another minor breakdown, misgendering/use of the wrong name, self-harm in the form of hair pulling, mentions of premediated harassment or violence (of an unknown nature), and, as always, mentions of Ryder's abuse and abuser. If you need any more details concerning those warnings, feel free to send me an ask on tumblr at thealmightytrebleclef.

It’s strange, going back to school after having a breakdown.

Everyone walks past him with smiles on their faces and engrossed in their own stories and conversations. A few people even wave at him, and he returns them with a smile. No one suspects that Ryder Lynn spent his night crying in the shower, plagued by nightmares as he slept. No one gives him a second glance.

He’s looking for Unique when he gets a text from her saying she’s too sick to come to school. He can’t hide his frown and sighs as he puts his phone back into his pocket, searching instead for Marley and Jake. They’re not at their lockers and not in the choir room, so he just gives up and stays there until the bell rings.

Sam and Blaine walk in, talking animatedly and gesturing wildly. They don’t even notice him until they’re practically right in front of him.

“Oh! Good morning, Ryder,” Blaine greets him.

“’Sup, bro,” Sam says, offering his fist to bump. Ryder does hesitantly and turns back to the books in his lap to study for English.  Blaine notices him and bumps himself on the forehead.

“I should actually go get my books from my locker now, or else I’m going to be late for French again. I’ll be right back,” Blaine says before walking quickly from the room, leaving Sam and Ryder alone.

It’s uncomfortable. Sam doesn’t seem bothered by anything, but all Ryder can think of is the day he told everyone what happened to him.  He doesn’t hate Sam; not anymore. It just makes him feel kind of sick to think that his friend doesn’t take what happened to him seriously. He’s glad he has people to tell him that it was wrong and that he’s totally right for feeling the way he did and does, but he can’t help but hate that someone as cool as Sam doesn’t think it was a big deal.

“Got any big plans this weekend?” Sam asks absentmindedly while looking at his phone.

Ryder shakes his head. “Nah. Probably just hang out with Unique and Marley or something.”

Sam chuckles. “She’s got you whipped, bro.”

Ryder shrugs and smiles softly. “I guess. I don’t care, though. I like it.”

The older boy looks at him and wags his eyebrows suggestively. “I bet you do.”

Ryder laughs and pushes him lightly. “Whatever, man.”

He’s about to continue and make a crack about hanging out with Brittany’s cat, but Jake walks in and looks between them, as though assessing the tone of the conversation (which he probably is.)

“What’s up, Sam?” he asks carefully, walking over to sit on the other side of Ryder.

“Hey, Jake,” Sam replies, seeming confused by Jake’s trepidation. “Everything all right?”

Jake nods and looks at Ryder. He frowns. “Everything all right with you?” he asks.

Ryder panics briefly before nodding. “Yeah, I’m good.”

Jake looks like he wants to persist, but he glances at Sam and gives Ryder a nod.

“What are you up to this weekend, Jake?” Sam asks.

Jake shrugs. “Not much. Might hang out with Puck and Finn over at Lima U, but I don’t know yet. Marley wants to go see some movie, so we might do that instead.”

“Oh, which one?”

The other two talk about some sci-fi movie playing that Ryder doesn’t really have an interest in right now. He texts Unique instead.

_To: Unique – I miss u. Come 2 school and I’ll make u soup and bring u blankets_

_From: Unique – I miss you too. But no way, I might pass out between classes._

_To: Unique – Boo. can i stop by after school?_  
  
From: Unique – I’d rather you didn’t so you don’t get sick, but you can if you want. 

_From: Unique – I really do miss you a lot._

 

Ryder smiles and sends her a heart before the warning bell rings.

 

* * *

 

Ryder keeps himself occupied with friends and homework and thinking about set lists until the end of the day. He skips out on Glee and drives over to the Adams’ house instead. It looks like just Betty is home, which is a bit of a relief since Rob kind of scares him.

Betty opens the door and smiles tightly at him. He knows he has to remain civil, since Unique loves her parents and always says she’s thankful they at least sort of accept her, but Ryder can’t stand that they don’t use her name or let her dress how she wants.

“Hi, Mrs. Adams. Can I go see Unique?” He asks politely.

“Sure,” she answers with equal politeness. “Wade!” she calls up the stairs while Ryder steps into the house. “Ryder’s here!”

Ryder grits his teeth as he jogs up the stairs. He wants to correct her so badly, but Unique made it very clear that he needs to stay on her parents’ good side so that they can see each other whenever they want to.

He opens the door to Unique’s room and chuckles at the sight of her with her scarfed head and bright blue nightgown. She’s covered in blankets and miserably sips water from a twisty straw.

“Hey,” he says softly. Her eyes open and she smiles back at him.

“Hi,” she croaks, he suspects more dramatically than necessary. “Don’t come too close, I don’t want you to get sick.”

“Not a chance,” he replies, walking over to her and lying next to her, on top of her blankets. She’s fevered and he warms instantly, more so when he drapes an arm over her. “Jeez, you’re burning up. Is it the flu?”

“Think so,” she says, blinking at him and leaning up to kiss his chin. He smiles softly and kisses her cheek, the smile growing when she closes her eyes and scrunches up her nose.

Ryder nods and pulls her closer to him. They don’t speak, though she would normally be asking about any gossip she’d missed or funny jokes he heard. He’s still surprised by how much better he can feel just by being near her. For the first time since the night before, his body is relaxed and calm and he feels safe.

“You okay?” she asks, as observant as ever.

He smiles grimly. “Yeah. I’m just…not feeling well.”

“I’m too sick to figure out how much you’re lying to me.”

Ryder sighs and plants a kiss on the top of her head. “Don’t worry about it, babe. I’m fine. My brain just isn’t being very good to me lately.”

She reaches up and lays a hand on his cheek. He closes his eyes and leans into her touch, the softness of her hands like a comforting blanket, spreading warmth throughout his body. He feels a mixture of ease and arousal, and he hopes that his body won’t betray him while his girlfriend is sick, especially not when they haven’t even discussed… _that_ yet.

The moment seems to last forever, and all he can think about is how much he loves her, how incredible it is that they found each other, how strange their courtship was and how complex their history is. She challenges every perception of the world he’s ever had and it makes him feel like anything is possible, especially at moments like this where it’s just him and her and their eyes can’t seem to break their hold. Her chest rises with every breath and his heart feels like it’s pounding so hard that it’s going to show soon.

Unique opens her mouth and speaks softly after a while. “Your brain pisses me off sometimes. Everyone and everything should be good to you.”

He chuckles and doesn’t notice that someone’s entered the room until Betty clears her throat.

They both jump a little bit and turn to her. Ryder sits up guiltily and looks at the wall next to Unique’s mom.

“Wa-Unique should get some rest now,” Betty says, and Ryder’s heart lifts a bit when she uses Unique’s name. It falls when he realizes she’s kicking him out.

“Yeah, sure,” he agrees quickly, turning to Unique to kiss her before hesitating and kissing her cheek instead. He avoids Betty’s eyes, so he doesn’t know if she’s watching or not, and he doesn’t know what kind of look she would be giving.

“Bye,” Unique says sadly. Ryder’s heart breaks and he leans back down to kiss her mouth, not giving a damn about germs or parental approval.

“I love you. I’ll come see you tomorrow if you’re still sick,” he promises.

“Love you, too,” Unique whispers, her eyes flickering back and forth between him and her mother.

Ryder turns and looks at Betty. He can’t figure out the look on her face. It might be something like fear, but it could easily be disapproval or controlled anger. He’d rather not think about it, so he politely walks around her in the doorway and jogs down the stairs.

 

* * *

 

Ryder keeps meaning to tell Unique about his breakdown after she returns to school, but he keeps forgetting or putting it off, justifying his avoidance by telling himself that it wasn’t that big of a deal. He’s walking around and smiling and laughing, right? There’s no need to alarm her when he’s already over it.

He makes it through the week, and when Mr. Schue walks into Glee Club with a smile, Ryder grins back automatically.

“In what has become a tradition, the New Directions have been asked to provide music for the Prom this year,” Mr. Schue says, and everyone cheers, including Ryder. “Blaine will explain everything to you guys.”

Blaine walks up to the center of the room with a big smile and claps his hands together. “So, this year we’re having one prom instead of two separate ones for the juniors and seniors. It’s going to be _huge_ and so I think we need to remember that when choosing songs. “

Ryder tunes when he realizes that it’s _prom_. He’s only a sophomore, so it’s not like he can actually _go_ , but if he’s performing, then maybe he should ask Unique to be his official date. It’s not like they won’t both be there anyway, but he knows that she’ll appreciate the gesture.

Blaine is saying something about a color palette, but Ryder’s thinking of ways to ask Unique to prom. On one hand, she’s dramatic and theatrical, so maybe that’s how he should ask. Maybe it’s not a good idea to ask in front of the whole school, but the Glee Club might be a good enough audience. On the other hand, he’s learned that quiet, intimate gestures mean a lot to her as well, and maybe something more private would be better.

Singing to her seems cliché, but it’s how he communicates best, he’s found. He looks over to see her and Sugar giggling about something, and smiles as he turns back to Blaine.

 

* * *

 

“Ryder!”

He turns around at the vaguely familiar voice, and smile in surprise when he sees Marissa.

“Hey!” He responds, giving her a one-armed hug when she reaches him. It’s weird to see her, the face he told everything to before he found out the truth, but he’s managed to disassociate Marissa from Katie. “How’s it going?”

“Great!” She responds with a contagious grin. “I just wanted to talk to you about something. Do you have time? It won’t take long.”

“Yeah, sure. Shoot,” he answers, moving to the side of the hall and giving her his attention.

She hesitates, and then speaks. “So, did you ever find out who was catfishing you? Because my dad’s a lawyer and--,”

He cuts her off with a shake of his head. “You know, don’t even worry about that. It’s all taken care of.”

Her eyes widen in surprise. “Oh! Okay. Great. Just wanted to let you know that there are a ton of resources for you, and because whoever it was used my face, my dad would be willing to help you out for basically free.”

Ryder freezes.

“Who was it, anyway? Did you find out?” Marissa asks with a well-meaning smile.

“Um,” Ryder stammers, looking past her to Unique walking down the hallway. He tries to look away before she realizes who he’s looking at, but she turns to follow his line of sight. “It was nobody. Just a bit of a joke. You’re not mad are you?” He asks loudly, trying to turn her attention back to him. “I mean, about them using your face.”

Marissa is still looking down the hallway, but he can’t tell if she’s looking at Unique. She turns around and there’s a strange expression on her face that he can’t quite decipher. She just nods at him with a small smile.

“No. It’s okay. Just as long as they don’t use it anymore,” she replies with something like wariness in her voice.

“Yeah, of course not. Thanks, Marissa, I have to go.”

“No problem. See you around, Ryder,” she replies. “Tell Unique I said ‘hi,’”

He’s already halfway down the hallway before he realizes that Marissa said ‘Unique’ instead of ‘Wade’.

 

* * *

 

Ryder spends the next few days trying to pick the perfect song to use to ask Unique to prom, but he’s distracted by how little he sees her. It feels like she’s avoiding him in the hallways and it’s almost like she’s upset when they’re together. No – he knows she upset, he’s just not quite sure why.

When she flat-out turns around in the middle of the hallway after catching sight of him, he decides to corner her after her last class and see what the hell is going on.

“Nothing’s going on,” she says with a sigh after he asks. She keeps walking briskly down the hallway, but he’s tall enough to not have any trouble keeping up with her. “Just because I don’t follow you around like a little puppy doesn’t mean I’m mad.”

Ryder doesn’t follow her anymore.

They don’t speak in Glee Club, and their friends notice.

“What’s going on with you two?” Jake asks when Unique leaves quickly after a dance rehearsal.

“What did you do?” Marley hisses angrily. Ryder throws his hands up.

“I don’t know!” he answers honestly. “She’s been avoiding me for days.”  
“You’d better figure it out,” Marley says threateningly, and Ryder sighs as she leads Jake out of the room with her. Jake shoots him an apologetic shrug and Ryder nods with understanding.

He’s almost finished packing his bag to leave when someone speaks up from the side of the room.

“She’s jealous.”

Ryder jumps and turns to see Tina looking at him with crossed arms.

“Where did you come from? I didn’t even see you there.”

She ignores him. “I know jealousy when I see it. She probably saw you talking to someone hotter than her,”

“Hey-,” he begins, but she keeps talking.

“In her mind, I mean. Not ‘hotter’ to you; ‘hotter’ to her.”

Ryder frowns. “That doesn’t make any sense. Unique says she’s beautiful every day. She _knows_ she’s gorgeous.”

Tina takes a deep breath and, surprisingly, stays patient. “She can know she’s beautiful and still be insecure. Just because you know you’re beautiful doesn’t mean the rest of the world thinks the same way.”

He considers that, and it breaks his heart because it reminds him of her saying that she wasn’t his idea of beauty.

“I don’t know who I talked to--,” he begins, but he knows as soon as he says it that she’s upset about Marissa.

“Yep,” Tina says as though she can read his mind. “You’d better go talk to her about it. Actually, you’d better let her bring it up, or else she’ll _really_ think someone else is hotter than her.”

Ryder nods and looks at Tina, who is studying her phone diligently.

“Thanks, Tina,” he says gratefully. She nods dismissively, but he walks over and holds out his arms for a hug. She looks at him in surprise and tentatively accepts the embrace. When they pull apart, she has a genuine smile that he’s only seen a few times since joining Glee Club.

“Any time.”

 

* * *

 

The next day, he continues to let her avoid him, waiting until the end of school until he talks to her so that they’ll have time. He sends her a quick text to tell her to meet him in the auditorium, and jogs there after class to pace and wait.

She walks in and looks at him warily.

“Can you keep this quick? I have to get home, I have work to do.”

“Tell me what’s wrong,” he commands. At his words, she shakes her head and walks past him.

“I told you it’s nothing. I have to go.”

He walks behind her, not wanting to let her go without getting everything out in the open and struggling not to bring up the jealousy outright, just like Tina advised.

“You’re clearly upset about something. Please just tell me what it is so that I can fix it!”

She stops short and he walks past a few steps before realizing she’s behind him. He turns around and faces her. She’s looking past him with a stony look, and it’s a little scary.

“Please,” he begs quietly. “Just tell me what I did.”

“Do you like her?” Unique asks quietly.

“What?” Ryder asks, his brow furrowing with momentary confusion, taken aback by her meek demeanor.

“Do you like her?” Unique repeats, her armor beginning to crack with a quivering lip. Ryder pulls her into a hug. There are no chairs on stage, but they’re not far from the edge, so he leads her by the hand and they sit so their legs dangle off the side. He takes her hands in his and tries to catch her eye.

“Where is this coming from?”

She sniffles and wipes at the few tears that have escaped.

“I’m not mad at you,” she says finally. “I’m mad at myself for being so naïve.”

“What?”

“Do you like Marissa? I mean, her face was the one you fell in love with--,”

“No, it wasn’t. I fell in love with _you,_ ” he corrects her, tapping his finger lightly on her nose. She smiles and bites her bottom lip gently.

“Unique knows she’s being ridiculous,” she says softly. “It’s still just…hard to believe that this is all real.”

The statement makes his breath catch and he doesn’t even realize he’s pulling her in for a kiss until their lips are touching and her body falls against his. He doesn’t know how to make her believe that he’s in this for as long as she’ll have him, and he supposes that it’s because he can’t quite grasp that this is real either. Everything with ‘Katie’ seems like a far-off dream/nightmare hybrid that doesn’t concern her or him, but his encounter with Marissa reminds him just how much he and Unique have behind them.

“Look, Unique,” he says, kissing her hand quickly before continuing. “You don’t have to be…scared about me. I don’t care about anyone else. Not the way I care about you. I don’t love anyone the way I love you. Can I tell you something?” He asks, and she nods. “Sometimes I’m scared I’m too boring or average to you,” he confesses. “You’re full of so much life and you’re so funny and dramatic, and I’m just…a weird boy who does dumb dances after touchdowns.”

Unique shakes her head and leans against him. “You’re my favorite person in the world,” she says simply, and it means everything to him. They’re silent then, their breathing the only noise in the auditorium. Unique buries her face against his arm and he knows that she’s not letting him see her cry.

“ _I’ve got sunshine_ ,” he begins to sing almost absentmindedly. “ _On a cloudy day. When it’s cold outside, I’ve got the month of May_ ,”

Unique sniffles and looks up at him with a giggle waiting to erupt.

“ _I guess you’d say, what could make me feel this way? My girl,_ ” he croons, and she laughs.

“Stop, you’re embarrassing me,” she teases, and he grins.

“Do you want to go to prom with me?” he blurts out, and then internally sighs. This was not how he wanted to ask.

Her eyes widen and she’s silent for what feels like forever.

“It’s okay if you don’t want to,” he amends, trying to cover up his embarrassment. “It’s not a big deal if you’d rather—“

“Ryder, stop talking,” Unique interjects, and he obeys immediately. “Unique would be honored.”

He beams back at her. “The honor is all Ryder’s,”

She rolls her eyes and kisses his cheek.

 

* * *

 

The next few days are a blur of school and rehearsals and secret makeouts and, yes, nightmares. Ryder isn’t quite sure how he’s supposed to get rid of them again. He was so sure they’d be gone forever after confronting Her, but they’re just as bad as they used to be. What scares him more than the nightmares is how he apparently can act like they’re not happening and no one is the wiser, not even Unique.

His father is still distant, but they manage to talk about their day at the dinner table when they both manage to be home on the same night. Ryder doesn’t mention Unique or the nightmares, and his father doesn’t ask why Ryder is so bleary eyed in the morning or why he often hears his son walking around late at night.

Miss Pillsbury seems to ask the same questions and give him the same advice, but Ryder keeps going to see her because he’s sure she’ll tell his father, and he’s not ready for him to know (and he probably never will be.) He knows she means well, but he can’t help but think that pestering him is not the way to get him to disclose to his parents.

Despite all of that, things are going pretty well. His classes are a lot easier now that he’s learning better ways to read and Finn had a point when he said that learning lyrics and choreography opened up his brain; Ryder feels like everything is a lot easier now when it comes to schoolwork. Not only is school going well, but he finds his bonds with everyone in Glee Club growing stronger, and it’s nice to have so many friends after not having many before. McKinley might be a tough place to survive, but he’d rather be here, with all of his friends, than anywhere else.

He should have known things were too easy.

Marissa comes running up to him in the hallway one day, her eyes wide with fear and his stomach sinks.

“Ryder, I’m so sorry; I didn’t mean for anyone to hear me, but someone did and—,”

“What’s happening?” He interjects, his anxiety beginning to rise with every word she says.

“Someone made these posters – I was talking to my sister at home and one of her friends overheard us and she told someone else and now—,”

“Talking about what?” He asks, but he knows.

“Unique,” she says softly, tears in her eyes. “I’m sorry, Ryder,”

She’s still talking when he pushes past her to the crowd of kids gathered around a poster and laughing.

It’s Unique’s face photoshopped onto a picture of a fish with ‘ _CATFISH’_ typed in huge letters on top of it. Written across the bottom is, ‘ _STAY AWAY FROM PROM, FAGS’_.

A terrifying feeling swells in him and it’s a feeling very similar to what he felt during his recent breakdown. It’s fear and desperation and resignation, but he pushes past it enough to tear the poster down.

He runs down the hall until he’s safe in the auditorium, and then he’s swallowed whole.

 

* * *

 

Kitty finds him.

She hands him her water bottle to sip from and pushes his hair back from his face, while removing his hands from his hair at the same time.

“Don’t,” she says gently, holding his fingers tightly. “It’s okay.”

He feels himself being drawn back into the real world with every word she softly utters.

“She needs you, Ryder,” she’s saying, and he feels awful because _Unique_ is the one who should be freaking out and clawing at herself, not him. “I understand it hurts, but she needs you. You need to be there for her.”

He nods, feeling more and more calm as the seconds pass. Eventually, his breathing is even and he manages to take a few more sips of water. He knows his eyes are red and puffy, and it’s strange to think that he’s been driven to another weird episode like this without thinking of Her; it was just fear and being overwhelmed. It makes him feel meek and small.

“Where is she?” he asks, his voice strange and thick in his mouth. “What time is it?”

“It’s two and she’s in the choir room. Mr. Schue pulled her out of her classes.”

Ryder briefly recalls that Unique’s parents are out of town, and he nods. The choir room is the best place for her right now. He stands to leave, but Kitty pulls him down.

“Not so fast. What was that? Has that happened to you before?” Her voice is full of worry, and he hates having her pity.

“None of your business,” he replies, and she sighs heavily.

“Excuse me for caring.”

“I have to go help Unique,” he says, standing up again. She doesn’t pull him back down.

“I just want to help you,” she says quietly. “We should be there for each other. I know I’m a bitch and you’re a weirdo, but you know that there are things those other guys don’t understand about us. No matter how supportive and great they are, you know they don’t _understand_.”

“I know,” Ryder says tightly, looking down at his shoes, examining the fading blue stripes on the sides. “I just can’t focus on myself _and_ Unique right now. I need to choose, and I choose her. I’ll deal with myself later. She was the one on that poster, not me.”

He meets her eyes and she nods. With that, he turns and walks out of the auditorium, leaving her still sitting on the ground.

 

* * *

 

Unique is sitting next to Marley and Jake in the choir room with tears streaming down her face. The whole club, minus Kitty, is there; some are chatting with each other, some are comforting Unique, and Blaine is pacing the room in his Nightbird costume with a worried look.

“Ryder,” Unique says when she sees him. He walks quickly over to her and Jake stands up so Ryder can have his seat. “Where were you?”

“I’m sorry,” he replies, not really answering. “I’m so sorry. Are you okay?”

She nods, but her lip is quivering and her eyes are puffy. “I’m starting to feel okay.”

“People are being assholes,” Jake says. Ryder turns to him, and is surprised by the anger in his best friend’s eyes. “If I wouldn’t get suspended, I would have kicked the shit out of half of this school.”

“Shh,” Marley says, pulling him over to her. He sits on the floor next to her and she runs her hand over his hair. “I’m glad you didn’t do anything stupid.”

“So am I,” Unique agrees. “You’re no good as a bodyguard if you’re not even here.” The other two chuckle, but Ryder keeps his forehead pressed against her shoulder. He feels awful that he was off having his own breakdown while people have probably been harassing his girlfriend and being total assholes. She needed him, and he let her down.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispers again, and she turns to him.

“Stop it, I’m okay. It’s just been a while since I’ve had to deal with something like this. Thankfully, most of the posters were down by the time I found out about them.”

“Who took them down?” Ryder asks, assuming it was Marley or someone else in the Glee Club.

“I think Sugar took a lot down while she was skipping class, and I saw some blonde girl taking some down,” Marley offers.

Ryder wonders who she’s talking about when Unique gestures for him to come close.

“Marissa was the one who told me,” she says quietly. “She came into math and said I needed to go to the office, then she just took me to Mr. Schue. They were people in the hall already and they were awful, but I’m glad I didn’t have to walk through that alone,” she says, sounding incredibly grateful. Ryder makes a mental note to thank Marissa, when Unique adds on almost casually, “She called me Unique.”

Ryder manages to smile for the first time since this all began. “Good.”

Unique smiles back.

“Um, guys?” Blaine asks from the front of the room. He’s looking down at his Nightbird phone in his hand with a frown. “Chai Tea has sent me some intel concerning prom. Apparently, there’s some sort of plan in the works to mess with Unique and Ryder if they show up.”

Everyone starts to murmur and Ryder just looks at Unique, whose eyes have grown slightly fearful.

“Who’s behind it, Nightbird?” Sam asks from the back of the room.

“Not sure, Blond Chameleon. The source is unknown and the information has traveled through word-of-mouth, but I suggest we remain extremely cautious.”

“How so?” Artie asks.

“Dr. Y, I suggest we form a perimeter around Mega Stud One and Unique throughout the night to prevent any violence or physical harassment. Not much we can do to cover verbal assault except sing loudly.”

“Whoa,” Ryder says, holding up his hands. “We are _not_ going to prom after this. It’s too dangerous.”

“Excuse you?” Unique says, pulling away from him and looking at him with disbelief. “Bullies will _not_ be ruining Unique’s first prom. I’ve been planning this my whole life.”

Ryder shakes his head. “We’ll go next year. We’ll throw our own prom. We’ll go to Disneyland, but we aren’t going to a prom where people want to hurt you.”

“I’m no coward, Ryder. I’m not going to run away from assholes who are pathetic enough to plan something like this.”

“We can keep you safe,” Sam assures. “There are so many of us that they won’t be able to get through anyway.”

“You two can stay on stage if you need to,” Blaine adds in agreement. “There’s no need to let them ruin our prom.”  
Ryder bites his lip. “I don’t think it’s safe. I think it’s stupid to try.”

“I think you’re overreacting, and I think I’m going to prom whether you’re accompanying me or not,” Unique says with finality.

The room is silent and watching them, and Ryder knows that this is an ultimatum whether she says so or not. On one hand, it _is_ dangerous to go while they know someone is planning to ruin it in some way. On the other hand, Unique doesn’t run from things, and he’s _tired_ of running himself. In reality, there is only one way to respond right now, and he sighs before speaking.

“I guess we’re going to prom,” he says, and the grin on her face is enough to make him forget the scariness of their situation for a moment.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains a stressful and emotional disclosure about Ryder's abuse, a one-sided fistfight, and Sam and Artie's ignorant responses to Ryder's abuse.

It’s a Saturday morning, and Ryder walks bleary-eyed into the Westerville Learning Center to meet with Desmond, his dyslexia specialist. These seven a.m. meetings are getting to be exhausting, but he’s made it this far and he’s not going to stop while his average is crawling higher and higher with every meeting. School has never been this easy for him, and he even outscored Kitty on a paper the other day. It feels good.

Des runs him through some reading exercises, and by the time he’s packing his things, he feels totally awake and ready for whatever else the day can throw at him.

“I’m so proud of you, Ryder,” Des says suddenly, his brown eyes shining behind thick-rimmed glasses. “I work with a lot of kids, and they’re usually not as old as you, but you work so much harder than a lot of people I’ve met. You’re going to go so far.”

Ryder smiles and walks over to hug the specialist. “Thanks, Des. I couldn’t have done anything I have so far without you.”

“I don’t know if I told you this, but my daughter has Down’s Syndrome,” Des replies, reaching over to his desk and grabbing a picture frame. He shows it to Ryder and the boy grins at Des with his family, his two brown-skinned girls sitting right in front of their parents. The one on the left is looking right into the camera and the one on the right, who looks to be the one with Down’s, stares just a little past the lens.

“You have a beautiful family,” Ryder offers, handing back the frame.

“Thank you,” Des responds, setting the picture back down. “The reason I wanted to tell you that is…have you given any thought to what you’re going to do after high school?”

Ryder is surprised by the question and takes a breath, letting it out as a low whistle. “Uh, I guess not. Not really. I never thought I would be smart enough to do anything after high school, to be honest.”

Desmond nods sadly. “I think you’re really special, Ryder. From meeting with you these past few months, I can tell that you’re a kind and patient person, and I think teaching or maybe even working with learning and intellectual disabilities could be something you’d be incredible at.”

Ryder lets out a short, disbelieving laugh. “Teaching? Me? I can barely read,” he replies skeptically.

“I’m not saying that it’s something you should definitively do, but you’re becoming a better reader every day, and you’ve always been a great student. You work hard and you’re sympathetic, and you don’t give up. I want someone like you to work with my daughter one day, and I don’t think you should write yourself off because you have dyslexia.”

“Do you really think I can get through college?” Ryder blurts out, hope blossoming in his chest.

“I think you can _fly_ through college, Ryder. I think you maintained a C minus average even though you couldn’t _read_. There are people who write books and plays and television shows who have dyslexia, and _plenty_ of teachers who have overcome disabilities.”

Ryder considers that. Even though he’s not exactly sure he would want to teach for a living, the idea of going to college is new to him, in the sense of being viable. College has always been an unattainable idea, something his father did that he’d never be able to live up to. Des is right, though. He _did_ make it pretty far on his own, and reading is almost simple to him now.

Maybe he has a future after all.

 

* * *

 

Prom is getting closer every day, and though Ryder is excited, a lot of fear comes with it. Not only does he have to worry about the bullies who might bother him and the choreography and lyrics for Glee Club, but he also has to ask his dad for suit-renting money despite barely speaking to him for weeks.

He decides to just go for it a little over a week before prom, knowing that the store is going to hate him for being so last minute.

“Hey, Dad?” Ryder asks over dinner. His father looks up with surprise from his iPad.

“Yes, Ryder?”

“I know this is sort of last minute, and I promise to work it off with chores or washing your car or something, but I need to rent a suit for prom next week.”

His father pressed the lock button on the iPad and gives Ryder his full attention.

“I though prom was an upperclassmen event?”

“It is,” Ryder agrees quickly. “But the Glee Club is performing, so I figured that I’d better dress nicely like I did for Sadie Hawkins.”

His father nods, considering it. “Sure. We’ll go to Ricardo’s tomorrow after school. I’ll pick you up early and we’ll head over.”

Ryder grins at his father. “Thanks, Dad. It means a lot.”

Some of the tension eases away and they manage to make small talk until they both retire to their bedrooms to do homework or, in Ryder’s dad’s case, real work. Despite the easiness between them, Ryder feels his Secret hovering over them like heavy, dark cloud, and he feels more pressure than ever to just _tell him_. He decides to blow off his nighttime routine of showering and reading so that he can just go to bed.

His nightmares are terrible that night.

 

* * *

 

The next day does not go well. Not at all.

Ryder wakes up forty-five minutes late and has to skip a shower so he’ll make it to school on time. Besides that, it’s raining and gloomy and even though it smells good, he can’t really appreciate it because he’s so tired. The night went by slowly, what with his nightmares waking him often and with a gasp of breath. He still has the creepy crawly feeling on his skin on the drive to McKinley.

When he gets there, he has to run to class without saying ‘hi’ to Unique, and is greeted by a math quiz that he’s honestly not ready for. He’s so frustrated while taking it that he wants to cry, but he manages to pull through and answer every question, even though he’s sure that at least half are wrong. He leaves the classroom feeling dejected, and that feeling doesn’t really go away for the rest of the day.

He finishes his science work early and asks to leave for the choir room, and thankfully, Ms. Walus lets him. He practically runs down the hallway, eager to be somewhere that makes him feel better. He’s about to burst in when he hears voices on the other side.

“I was reading that it causes a lot of guilt and embarrassment, especially in boys who were assaulted as children, because society so often blames victims.” Ryder recognizes Jake’s voice.

“That doesn’t make sense. Why would that embarrass someone? And especially boys who are _molested_ ,” Artie says the last word sarcastically. “By girls? Like, it makes no sense to be embarrassed if you’re really _assaulted_ by someone, but it really makes no sense to be embarrassed by hooking up with an older girl.”

“Dude,” Jake says severely. “That wasn’t a fucking hookup. How would you feel if someone just busted into your shower and touched your junk when you don’t want them to?”

“That would be--,” Sam starts, but Ryder’s heard enough.

“What are you doing?” He asks after opening the door.

Jake looks up at him in surprise and glances guiltily at the other boys. “I’m trying to tell them--,”

“You didn’t ask me,” Ryder cuts him off. “I told you that I didn’t want to talk to them about it, and you’re doing it anyway.”

Jake stands up. “I’m doing this because you’re my brother. They need to understand how wrong it was and how big of douchebags they are for not understanding.”

“Hey,” Sam protests, but no one pays him any attention.

“No, you just need to mind your own business,” Ryder replies, shaking his head and fighting back the rage forming in him.

“I’m tired of them being able to go around without thinking that what they said was wrong! You need the support of everyone here, whether you know it or not, and they can’t support you if they don’t understand,”

Ryder holds up a hand. “Stop. You’re always getting in my business, Jake. What makes you think you know what’s best for me? You’re not my mom.”

“I never said I was!” Jake yells. Ryder should know better than to argue like this with Jake, but it’s been such a horrible day that he just needs to be angry with _someone_. “Sue me for wanting to help you!”

“Why don’t you just stop helping me, then? Just leave me alone!” Ryder says, knowing that he doesn’t really mean it, deep down.

“No!” Jake retorts, moving toward Ryder. “I’m not going to sit around and let you think that you can hurt yourself or hate yourself just because that woman did what she did, and I’m not going to let these guys think it was okay!”

“You hurt yourself?” Artie asks quietly, but no one pays attention to him either. He and Sam watch quietly, but Sam is clearly ready to break anything up if something happens.

“Go away!” Ryder yells, tears burning at his eyes, and pushes Jake away.

“Stand up for yourself!” Jake screams, and Ryder throws the first punch.

To be fair, Jake doesn’t really fight back. He guards his face and stomach, but Ryder pretty much has free reign over him. They’re on the ground in no time, and Ryder can vaguely feel Sam trying to pull him off of Jake, but he keeps flailing wildly.

Finally, he’s pulled away and Artie rolls in front of him so that he can’t lunge forward again. Jake watches him, his face a mixture of anger and sadness.  Ryder’s breathing is heavy and he’s struggling to find a center in the flurry that’s become his brain.

“What’s going on?” Mr. Schue says loudly, and Ryder doesn’t bother turning to him.

Artie quickly explains what happened, starting with Jake asking Artie and Sam to meet him in the choir room before rehearsal and ending with how Ryder started wailing on Jake, who didn’t retaliate.

Mr. Schue listens without saying anything, and when Artie’s finished, he looks between Ryder and Jake warily, clearly conflicted. He looks around the room discreetly and turns to them.

“I could get in trouble for this, but Principal Figgins has a tendency to be inconsistent with punishment, and I don’t want Jake getting suspended again. As long as this fight stays between the five of us, no one will have to go to the office. Clear?” All of them nod, and Schue turns to Ryder. “I’m calling your father.”

Ryder crashes back to reality at the mention of his dad. After waking up late and the horrible day he’s had, he forgot that he was supposed to meet him outside at three, and it is now almost three thirty. He grabs his backpack and pushes past his teacher and his best friend.

“Ryder, come back here,” Mr. Schue commands.

“My dad is waiting for me outside; call him if you want.”

He books it down the hallway, running right past Joe and Sugar without sparing them a glance or replying to their greetings. He’s almost to the door when he hears Unique behind him.

“Ryder! Where have you—what’s wrong? Where are you going?”

He turns around and jogs to her.

“I have to go, I’m late for meeting my dad.”

He tries to turn, but she grabs his arm. “Slow down. What’s going on? You look…strange.”

“I got into a little fight with Jake. It’s nothing,” he lies, the immensity of his actions beginning to weigh down on him.

“What? Why?”

“I’ll call you later,” he pleads, trying to pull away. “I really have to go meet my dad; I’m getting fitted for my prom tux.”

She frowns at him, her eyes begging him to explain. He pulls her face to his and kisses her square on the mouth, something they’ve never done in the school.

“I promise that I’ll explain everything later. I love you.”

He turns and runs, vaguely hearing her return her love behind him.

He pushes open the front doors and curses when he sees his father standing next to his car, on his phone and clearly upset. Mr. Schue must have taken his advice and called him.

By the time he gets to the car, his father is furious.

“Get in the car,” he commands, and Ryder obeys immediately. His heart is pounding and he’s not sure how he’s going to explain what happened beyond, “I had a really bad day and beat up my best friend for trying to help me.”

“We’re late for the fitting at Ricardo’s, but they had a cancellation and gave you that spot instead.”

Ryder nods, terrified that his father isn’t asking him about the fight. Bad Company is playing through his father’s XM Radio, his phone is buzzing in his pocket, but all he can focus on is his father’s breathing.

“I think we need to transfer you after this year,” his father says suddenly, calmly.

Ryder turns to him in disbelief. “What? Are you kidding?”

“You’ve disobeyed me about the Adams boy, you got in a fight with Jake, who I always said was a bad influence, you haven’t spoken to your sister or your mother in weeks…I just don’t think McKinley is good for you.”

“You’ve got to be joking,” Ryder says without thinking. “McKinley is the best thing that ever happened to me. I’d probably still be beating myself up every night because I couldn’t read if I didn’t go to McKinley.”

“If you weren’t at McKinley, you wouldn’t have death threats coming into the house every night!”

Ryder gapes, never hearing of any threats. “What are you talking about? No one’s threaten—,”

“Every night,” his father repeats, staring straight ahead. “Every night, I pick up the phone and someone tells me that my son is a fag who needs to die.”

Ryder’s breath catches in his throat, but he can’t let the argument die here. “I can’t leave, Dad. The only reason I haven’t called Mom or Remy is because I have _friends_ now. I have a girlfriend and a best friend, whether you approve or not. I’ve never had those before.”

“A boyfriend who gets you death threats and a best friend who fights you; sounds wonderful,” his father retorts sarcastically.

“GIRLFRIEND!” Ryder yells. His father pulls his car over to the side of the road, and Ryder continues after it’s in ‘park’. “And Jake is the reason I know I have dyslexia. He’s the reason I’m getting good grades and know that I’m not just stupid,” The more he talks about Jake, the worse he feels about the fight, especially remembering how Jake just protected himself and let Ryder punch him.

“Then why did Schuester just tell me that you two were in a fistfight?”

Ryder is silent. He can’t think quickly enough to think of a reason that doesn’t reveal his Secret, so he just picks something vague. “He was trying to help me, but I didn’t want help, and it made me angry because I’m tired, and so I started punching him. He didn’t even fight back,” he adds in a whisper, looking down in shame.

“Why are you tired? Are you staying up too late? Why do I hear you stomping around in the middle of the night?”

Ryder looks up at his father, and he knows. He knows that if he answers truthfully, his father’s questions will lead to the truth, and his father will _know_ the Secret that’s been weighing him down more and more with every day that he doesn’t tell his parents. He considers lying and saying that it’s just his brain being too busy, but that’s not what he wants anymore.

He’s _tired_. People aren’t supposed to feel so weary at sixteen, but he feels like he’s lived a hundred lives since he was eleven. Every word feels like a lie, even though no one’s asked him if he’s been molested. Even though he’s told so many people in the past few months, even though he’s faced the monster, even though he’s in love and happy and _smart_ , the fingers in his hipbones sink deeper and deeper with every silent dinner and every gasping breath after a nightmare. He doesn’t want to run anymore. He _can’t_. He’s too tired.

“I’ve been having nightmares.”

His father tilts his head. “Again? The monster?”

Ryder nods, tears beginning to fill his eyes.

“I’ll call that therapist again and see if she has any tips about how to get rid of them.”

Ryder nods, disappointed that he didn’t ask, for the first time, what the monster does in the nightmares.

“Well, what was Jake trying to do that got you so upset, son?” His father asks unexpectedly, his voice the gentlest it has ever been.

Here it is, the question that is going to change everything, hopefully for the better. Ryder takes a deep, shaky breath.

“He uh,” Ryder starts, clearing his throat and wiping his eyes. “He was teaching these boys in Glee Club about sexual abuse.”

Their car has become a vacuum. No noise gets in, no air, no light or dust. They’re so silent inside that they might as well just disappear.

“What does that have to do with you?” His father asks. Stupidly, Ryder thinks. His father is so stupid.

“He was telling them how it’s not _cool_ when a teenage girl touches an eleven year-old boy. He was trying to teach them decency.”

Water crashing down around him, wave after wave of tsunami waters that deafen him, blind him, break him, clean him.

“Ryder,” his father breathes, but Ryder can’t look at him. His eyes are glued to a dandelion growing in the ditch. What a hopeful little weed.

“Look at me, Partner,” his father begs, his voice trembling. Ryder jerks at the nickname; he hasn’t heard it in years. He remembers playing with toy horses in the backyard with Remy – they were Woody and Jessie, but she let him do the yodeling.

“Was it Hattie? Hattie Willard?”

Ryder sobs at the name and buries his head in his hands, unable to control anything anymore. He feels his father’s arms around him, and he feels like a baby again, safe in Dad’s hug.

“It’s okay,” his father says, over and over again until it’s almost a song. “Everything’s okay, Ryder.”

 

* * *

 

They go to Ricardo’s and Ryder gets fitted for his tux in mostly silence. Both of them make small conversation with the workers as if they hadn’t just had an emotional breakthrough on the way over, but the Lynn’s are consummate professionals.

They get home and Ryder’s dad gives him a quick hug before going to prepare dinner. Ryder sets the table, as he always has, and sweeps the floor of any dust it might have picked up that day. It’s a silence that is more comfortable than it usually is, yet is also a bit heavier. He _knows_. His father _knows_ , and that’s kind of amazing.

When it’s finally time to eat, his father sets out a plate of spaghetti, Ryder’s favorite, and gets right to the point.

“First off, we’re going to find her and press charges. You still have a couple of years to testify.”

“No,” Ryder answers. His father sighs. “I’m sorry, Dad, I know you’re trying to help. I’ve already thought it through, and I’m not reporting her. She has kids now; she has a family. I’m giving her a chance.”

His father wants to fight, Ryder can tell, but he doesn’t. He just nods and continues. “Second off, we’re going to find a therapist that can better suit your needs. I’m sure that school counselor of yours means well, but I think a specialist will be better for you in the long run.”

Ryder nods in agreement; Miss Pillsbury will be pleased.

“Third…when you’re ready, we’ll tell your mother and Remy. As a family.”

Ryder’s a little surprised by that one. His parents don’t get along at all, and only let the other live because of him and Remy. It terrifies him to think of telling not only his mother, but also his sister.

“Okay,” Ryder says. “How about the day after Remy comes home?”

The time is drawing near. In fact, she’s scheduled to fly in the day after prom. Ryder had been excited about seeing her again, but now he’s sort of hoping she’ll get lost in Scotland and decide to live there.

“That sounds perfect.”

Ryder nods and continues eating. Neither of them speaks for the remainder of meal, but for once, Ryder doesn’t feel like a criminal in his own home. He’s about to stand up and leave when his father raises a hand to make him sit down. He obeys, curious as to what his dad has to say.

“Ryder, there’s something else I want to say,”

The boy nods and waits. His father seems to struggle with his words, and Ryder’s afraid that this is another attempt to make him break up with Unique.

“I was thinking a lot in Ricardo’s and while preparing dinner…I was thinking about how you’ve seemed so much happier these past few months, even if you’re not home as much. Knowing now what I do, about how much you’ve struggled with more than just schoolwork, it’s plain that you’d be in a much darker place without those friends of yours.”

Ryder watches his father carefully, his breath held in both excitement and fear.

“I want you to like me again, Ryder. I want to understand your…girlfriend. I want to support _all_ of your friendships, and I don’t want you to hate me.”

“I could never hate you, Dad,” Ryder interjects.

“Don’t be so sure,” his father replies with a small smile. “I’m just saying…I want to understand what makes you happy, and I’m going to try harder to do that.”

Ryder grins at his father, unable to stop it. “Thanks, Dad.”

His father’s grin is identical; he’s not sure how he’s never noticed it before.

 

* * *

 

_“Where the hell have you been, boy?”_

Ryder chuckles at Unique’s furious tone, then feels bad about leaving her in the dark all day.

“I’m so sorry, babe. Today’s been…unreal.”

_“Yeah, Jake told me all about that fight. What on earth is going on with you?”_

“Do you want me to come get you? We can hang out on my roof or something.”

Unique huffs at the other end of the line. _“Fine. But I better get answers.”_

“Of course,” Ryder agrees before hanging up and grabbing his keys.

The drive to her house goes by quickly and he spends the whole time trying to figure out how he’s going to tell her everything that happened that day. Part of him doesn’t want to talk about it all, but another, stronger part wants to scream his secret to the world now that his dad knows. Mostly, he’s exhausted.

By the time he pulls up to her house, she’s sitting on her steps and looking at her phone. She glances up at him and his breath catches at the relief and love in her eyes. As tough and silly as she is, he knows how much she worries and how much she cares about people, and he feels terrible for causing her any kind of stress.

When she climbs into the car, the first thing she does is lace her fingers through his hair and pull him to her. Their lips meet softly and Ryder remembers the phrase “feels like coming home,” thinking that it fits the situation perfectly.

They pull apart and he reaches up to touch her cheek, unable to stop himself. All he wants is for her to be as close to him as possible; he needs to touch of her skin against his. They sit that way for a few minutes until Ryder finally turns back to the wheel and drives them to his house. Neither of them says a word.

He parks in the street and they walk around to the back door so they sneak upstairs through the kitchen. It’s not like Ryder’s scared of his dad or anything, but they’re so used to doing it this way that it almost seems a shame to go through the front door. They hurry into his room once they reach the hallway, both of them laughing softly at their ridiculousness. Unique grabs the blanket they always lay out and the body pillow they share. Their hands are clasped tightly, and Ryder leads the way to his window, where they clamber out onto the lower part of the roof and survey the area briefly.

“Ladies first?” Ryder asks, taking the blanket and pillow from her and gesturing to the ladder that leads to the very top of the house.

“Of course,” Unique replies, scurrying up the ladder and holding a hand out for their things once Ryder follows.

They take a minute to lay out the blanket and get settled, resting their heads on the pillow and getting comfortable. Unique reaches for his hand again and Ryder takes it gratefully. Her other hand pulls out her iPod and she plays a song about a river.

“Tell me,” she says simply, and he obeys her command.

He starts with the breakdown when she was sick, following with the fight with Jake and his father getting angry with him, choosing to exclude the death threats his dad mentioned.                   

“And then I just…told him,” he breathes. “I couldn’t hide it anymore. I’m too tired of hiding.”

Her grip on his hand tightens and he turns to see tears in her eyes.

“Come on, don’t cry,” he says with a smile, trying not to sound like he’s begging. “I’m glad I told him.”

“So am I,” she says. “That’s why I’m crying.”

“Silly girl,” he whispers, turning his whole body to face her and tapping her nose with her index finger. “I don’t deserve you.”

She chuckles and shakes her head. “I don’t deserve _you_.”

Neither of them has anything else to say, so Ryder leans forward and presses his lips insistently against hers. She returns his pressure, and something different blooms in Ryder. It’s desperation to be as close to her as possible, much like how he felt earlier when he touched her cheeks. This is desperation in his entire body, though, including his…dick, for lack of a better word. It’s not that he hasn’t _wondered_ what they’ll do when the time comes; he’s looked up stuff on the Internet, and he has an idea how it might go, but they haven’t talked about it, and now he realizes that that’s a big fault on his part.

Somehow, she’s above him, and he just keeps wrapping his arms tighter around her, grasping the fabric of her sweater in his hands or caressing the back of her neck, all while continuing to kiss her deeply, breathlessly. Her stomach presses against his, and she pulls away, a flicker of self-consciousness crossing her features. Ryder shakes his head and pulls her close again until her body is as against his as it can be. His hand trails along her back, sliding down against her stomach and hips and hesitating at the end of her spine.

“Not yet,” she whispers. He’s somewhat disappointed, but he’s also relieved. They’re not ready to go very far yet, especially when they haven’t even talked about it, and especially when there's so much about sex that he needs to learn to deal with. He supposes this is a good opportunity to talk, though. He waits until she’s back on the blanket and faced toward him, her eyes tired but bright.

“I guess we should…I don’t know, talk about it,” he says quietly, distracted by the star-shaped earrings she’s wearing.

“Talk about what?” she teases, running her finger along his collar and making his breath catch in his throat.

“You know,” he manages to say. “Don’t be cute.”

“It’s not like I can help it,” she responds with a wink. He laughs and leans forward to kiss her nose. Her whole faces scrunches up and he can’t help but lean in to do it again. She sighs.

“Fine, but not tonight. I just want to be here with you tonight without worrying about anything.”

Ryder smiles. “Deal.”

They keep looking at each other, and Ryder tries to focus on the music still playing from Unique’s iPod.

“I love this song,” he says, bobbing his head to the beat of the Beyoncé song that starts.

“ _I can see the stars all the way from here,”_ Unique sings in response.

Ryder holds her hand and breathes.


End file.
